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THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF 
FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 

BY  H.  L.  MENCKEN 


I shall  be  told,  I suppose,  that  my  philosophy  is  comfortless  — 
because  I speak  the  truth ; and  people  prefer  to  believe  that 
everything  the  Lord  made  is  good.  If  you  are  one  such,  go  to 
the- priests,  and  leave  philosophers  in  peace  ! 

Arthur  Schopenhauer. 


Third  Edition 


BOSTON 

LUCE  AND  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1908 
Br  Henry  L.  Mencken 
Copyright,  1913 
By  Hehry  L.  Mencken 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 


When  this  attempt  to  summarize  and  interpret  the 
principal  ideas  of  Friedrich  Wilhelm  Nietzsche  was  first 
published,  in  the  early  part  of  1908,  several  of  his  most 
important  books  were  yet  to  be  translated  into  English 
and  the  existing  commentaries  were  either  fragmentary 
and  confusing  or  frankly  addressed  to  the  specialist  in 
philosophy.  It  was  in  an  effort  to  make  Nietzsche  com- 
prehensible to  the  general  reader,  at  sea  in  German  and 
unfamiliar  with  the  technicalities  of  the  seminaries,  that 
the  work  was  undertaken.  It  soon  appeared  that  a con- 
siderable public  had  awaited  that  effort,  for  the  first 
edition  was  quickly  exhausted  and  there  was  an  imme- 
diate demand  for  a special  edition  in  England.  The 
larger  American  edition  which  followed  has  since  gone 
the  way  of  its  predecessor,  and  so  the  opportunity  offers 
for  a general  revision,  eliminating  certain  errors  in  the 
first  draft  and  introducing  facts  and  opinions  brought 
forward  by  the  publication  of  Dr.  Oscar  Levy’s  admi- 
rable complete  edition  of  Nietzsche  in  English  and  by 
the  appearance  of  several  new  and  informative  bio- 
graphical studies,  and  a large  number  of  discussions  and 
criticisms.  The  whole  of  the  section  upon  Nietzsche’s 
intellectual  origins  has  been  rewritten,  as  has  been  the 

vii 


ETC  '1 

UU  (L.  li 


viii  PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 

section  on  his  critics,  and  new  matter  has  been  added  to 
the  biographical  chapters.  In  addition,  the  middle 
portion  of  the  book  has  been  carefully  revised,  and  a 
final  chapter  upon  the  study  of  Nietzsche,  far  more  ex- 
tensive than  the  original  bibliographical  note,  has  been 
appended.  The  effect  of  these  changes,  it  is  believed, 
has  been  to  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  book,  not  only 
to  the  reader  who  will  go  no  further,  but  also  to  the 
reader  who  plans  to  proceed  to  Nietzsche’s  own  writings 
and  to  the  arguments  of  his  principal  critics  and  de- 
fenders. 

That  Nietzsche  has  been  making  progress  of  late  goes 
without  saying.  No  reader  of  current  literature,  nor 
even  of  current  periodicals,  can  have  failed  to  notice  the 
increasing  pressure  of  his  ideas.  When  his  name  was 
first  heard  in  England  and  America,  toward  the  end  of 
the  nineties,  he  suffered  much  by  the  fact  that  few  of 
his  advocates  had  been  at  any  pains  to  understand  him. 
Thus  misrepresented,  he  took  on  the  aspect  of  an  hor- 
rific intellectual  hobgoblin,  half  Bakunin  and  half  Byron, 
a sacrilegious  and  sinister  fellow,  the  father  of  all  the 
wilder  ribaldries  of  the  day.  In  brief,  like  Ibsen  before 
him,  he  had  to  bear  many  a burden  that  was  not  his. 
But  in  the  course  of  time  the  truth  about  him  gradually 
precipitated  itself  from  this  cloud  of  unordered  enthu- 
siasm, and  his  principal  ideas  began  to  show  themselves 
clearly.  Then  the  discovery  was  made  that  the  report  of 
them  had  been  far  more  appalling  than  the  substance. 
Some  of  them,  indeed,  had  already  slipped  into  respect- 
able society  in  disguise,  as  the  original  inspirations  of 
lesser  sages,  and  others,  on  examination,  turned  out  to 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION  ix 


be  quite  harmless,  and  even  comforting.  The  worst 
that  could  be  said  of  most  of  them  was  that  they  stood 
in  somewhat  violent  opposition  to  the  common  plati- 
tudes, that  they  wTere  a bit  vociferous  in  denying  this 
planet  to  be  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds.  Heresy,  of 
course,  but  falling,  fortunately  enough,  upon  ears  fast 
growing  attuned  to  heretical  music.  The  old  order  now 
had  fewer  to  defend  it  than  in  days  gone  by.  The 
feeling  that  it  must  yield  to  something  better,  that  con- 
tentment must  give  way  to  striving  and  struggle,  that 
any  change  was  better  than  no  change  at  all  — this 
feeling  was  abroad  in  the  world.  And  if  the  program  of 
change  that  Nietzsche  offered  was  startling  at  first 
hearing,  it  was  at  least  no  more  startling  than  the  pro- 
grams offered  by  other  reformers.  Thus  he  got  his  day 
in  court  at  last  and  thus  he  won  the  serious  attention  of 
open-minded  and  reflective  folk. 

Not,  of  course,  that  Nietzsche  threatens,  today  or  in 
the  near  future,  to  make  a grand  conquest  of  Christen- 
dom, as  Paul  conquered,  or  the  unknown  Father  of 
Republics.  Far  from  it,  indeed.  Filtered  through  the 
comic  sieve  of  a Shaw  or  sentimentalized  by  a Roose- 
velt, some  of  his  ideas  show  a considerable  popularity, 
but  in  their  original  state  they  are  not  likely  to  inflame 
millions.  Broadly  viewed,  they  stand  in  direct  opposi- 
tion to  every  dream  that  soothes  the  slumber  of  man- 
kind in  the  mass,  and  therefore  mankind  in  the  mass 
must  needs  be  suspicious  of  them,  at  least  for  years  to 
come.  They  are  pre-eminently  for  the  man  who  is  not 
of  the  mass,  for  the  man  whose  head  is  lifted,  however 
little,  above  the  common  level.  They  justify  the  success 


x PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 


of  that  man,  as  Christianity  justifies  the  failure  of  the 
man  below.  And  so  they  give  no  promise  of  winning 
the  race  in  general  from  its  old  idols,  despite  the  fact 
that  the  pull  of  natural  laws  and  of  elemental  appetites 
is  on  their  side.  But  inasmuch  as  an  idea,  to  make  itself 
felt  in  the  world,  need  not  convert  the  many  who  serve 
and  wait  but  only  the  few  who  rule,  it  must  be  manifest 
that  the  Nietzschean  creed,  in  the  long  run,  gives  prom- 
ise of  exercising  a very  real  influence  upon  human 
thought.  Reduced  to  a single  phrase,  it  may  be  called 
a counterblast  to  sentimentality  — and  it  is  precisely 
by  breaking  down  sentimentality,  with  its  fondness  for 
moribund  gods,  that  human  progress  is  made.  If  Niet- 
zsche had  left  no  other  vital  message  to  his  time,  he  would 
have  at  least  forced  and  deserved  a hearing  for  his  warn- 
ing that  Christianity  is  a theory  for  those  who  distrust 
and  despair  of  their  strength,  and  not  for  those  who 
hope  and  fight  on. 

To  plat  his  principal  ideas  for  the  reader  puzzled  by 
conflicting  reports  of  them,  to  prepare  the  way  for  an 
orderly  and  profitable  reading  of  his  own  books  — such 
is  the  purpose  of  the  present  volume.  The  works  of 
Nietzsche,  as  they  have  been  done  into  English,  fill 
eighteen  volumes  as  large  as  this  one,  and  the  best  avail- 
able account  of  his  life  would  make  three  or  four  more. 
But  it  is  sincerely  to  be  hoped  that  the  student,  once  he 
has  learned  the  main  paths  through  this  extensive 
country,  will  proceed  to  a diligent  and  thorough  explora- 
tion. Of  all  modern  philosophers  Nietzsche  is  the  least 
dull.  He  was  undoubtedly  the  greatest  German  prose 
writer  of  his  generation,  and  even  when  one  reads  him 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION  xi 


through  the  English  veil  it  is  impossible  to  escape  the 
charm  and  color  of  his  phrases  and  the  pyrotechnic  bril- 
liance of  his  thinking. 

Mencken. 

Baltimore,  November,  1913. 


CONTENTS 


NIETZSCHE  THE  MAN 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Boyhood  and  Youth  . 

PAGE 

3 

II. 

The  Beginnings  of  the  Philosopher 

. 16 

III. 

Blazing  a New  Path 

• 

• 27 

IV. 

The  Prophet  of  the  Superman 

• 

. 40 

V. 

The  Philosopher  and  the  Man 

• 

. 50 

I. 

NIETZSCHE  THE  PHILOSOPHER 
Dionysus  vs.  Apollo 

• cSj 

• 74 

II. 

The  Origin  of  Morality  . 

III. 

Beyond  Good  and  Evil 

. 88 

IV. 

The  Superman  .... 

. 100 

V. 

Eternal  Recurrence 

. 1 17 

VI. 

Christianity  .... 

. 126 

VII. 

Truth  

. 147 

VIII. 

Civilization  .... 

. 162 

IX. 

Women  and  Marriage 

• 174 

X. 

Government  .... 

. 192 

XI. 

Crime  and  Punishment 

. 208 

XII. 

Education 

. 216 

XIII. 

Sundry  Ideas  .... 

. 226 

XIV. 

Nietzsche  vs.  Wagner 

. 242 

I. 

NIETZSCHE  THE  PROPHET 
Nietzsche’s  Origins  .... 

• 255 

II. 

Nietzsche  and  His  Critics 

• 

• 

. 268 

How  to  Study  Nietzsche 

. 290 

Index  

. 

. 

. 297 

soil 


NIETZSCHE  THE  MAN 


* 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


i 

BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

Friedrich  Nietzsche  was  a preacher’s  son,  brought 
up  in  the  fear  of  the  Lord.  It  is  the  ideal  training  for 
sham-smashers  and  freethinkers.  Let  a boy  of  alert, 
restless  intelligence  come  to  early  manhood  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  strong  faith,  wherein  doubts  are  blasphemies 
and  inquiry  is  a crime,  and  rebellion  is  certain  to  appear 
with  his  beard.  So  long  as  his  mind  feels  itself  puny 
beside  the  overwhelming  pomp  and  circumstance  of  pa- 
rental authority,  he  will  remain  docile  and  even  pious. 
But  so  soon  as  he  begins  to  see  authority  as  something 
ever  finite,  variable  and  all-too-human  — when  he  begins 
to  realize  that  his  father  and  his  mother,  in  the  last  analy- 
sis, are  mere  human  beings,  and  fallible  like  himself  — 
then  he  will  fly  precipitately  toward  the  intellectual  wail- 
ing places,  to  think  his  own  thoughts  in  his  own  way  and 
to  worship  his  own  gods  beneath  the  open  sky. 

As  a child  Nietzsche  was  holy;  as  a man  he  was  the 


3 


4 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


symbol  and  embodiment  of  all  unholiness.  At  nine  he 
was  already  versed  in  the  lore  of  the  reverend  doctors, 
and  the  pulpit,  to  his  happy  mother  — a preacher’s 
daughter  as  well  as  a preacher’s  wife  — seemed  his  logical 
and  lofty  goal;  at  thirty  he  was  chief  among  those  who 
held  that  all  pulpits  should  be  torn  down  and  fashioned 
Into  bludgeons,  to  beat  out  the  silly  brains  of  theologians. 

The  awakening  came  to  him  when  he  made  his  first 
venture  away  from  the  maternal  apron-string  and  fire- 
side : when,  as  a boy  of  ten,  he  learned  that  there  were 
many,  many  men  in  the  world  and  that  these  men  were  of 
many  minds.  With  the  clash  of  authority  came  the  end 
of  authority.  If  A.  was  right,  B.  was  wrong  — and  B. 
had  a disquieting  habit  of  standing  for  one’s  mother,  one’s 
grandmother  or  the  holy  prophets.  Here  was  the  beginning 
of  intelligence  in  the  boy  — the  beginning  of  that  weighing 
and  choosing  faculty  which  seems  to  give  man  at  once 
his  sense  of  mastery  and  his  feeling  of  helplessness.  The 
old  notion  that  doubt  was  a crime  crept  away.  There 
remained  in  its  place  the  new  notion  that  the  only  real 
crime  in  the  world  — the  only  unmanly,  unspeakable 
and  unforgivable  offense  against  the  race  — was  un- 
reasoning belief.  Thus  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Nietzsche 
home  turned  upon  and  devoured  itself. 

The  philosopher  of  the  superman  was  born  on  October 
15th,  1844,  at  Rocken,  a small  town  in  the  Prussian 
province  of  Saxony.  His  father,  Karl  Ludwig  Nietzsche, 
was  a country  pastor  of  the  Lutheran  Church  and  a man 
of  etninence  in  the  countryside.  But  he  was  more  than  a 
mere  rural  worthy,  with  an  outlook  limited  by  the  fringe 
of  trees  on  the  horizon,  for  in  his  time  he  had  seen  some- 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


5 


thing  of  the  great  world  and  had  even  played  his  humble 
part  in  it.  Years  before  his  son  Friedrich  was  bom  he  had 
been  tutor  to  the  children  of  the  Duke  of  Altenburg.  The 
duke  was  fond  of  him  and  took  him,  now  and  then,  on 
memorable  and  eventful  journeys  to  Berlin,  where  that 
turbulent  monarch,  King  Friedrich  Wilhelm  IV,  kept  a 
tinsel  court  and  made  fast  progress  from  imbecility  to  acute 
dementia.  The  king  met  the  young  tutor  and  found 
him  a clever  and  agreeable  person,  with  excellent  opinions 
regarding  all  those  things  whereon  monarchs  are  wont  to 
differ  with  mobs.  When  the  children  of  the  duke  became 
sufficiently  saturated  with  learning,  the  work  of  Pastor 
Nietzsche  at  Altenburg  was  done  and  he  journeyed  to 
Berlin  to  face  weary  days  in  the  anterooms  of  ecclesiastical 
magnates  and  jobbers  of  places.  The  king,  hearing  by 
chance  of  his  presence  and  remembering  him  pleasantly, 
ordered  that  he  be  given  without  delay  a vicarage  worthy 
of  his  talents.  So  he  was  sent  to  Rocken,  and  there,  when 
a son  was  born  to  him,  he  called  the  boy  Friedrich  Wil- 
helm, as  a graceful  compliment  to  his  royal  patron  and 
admirer. 

There  were  two  other  children  in  the  house.  One  was 
a boy,  Josef,  who  was  named  after  the  Duke  of  Alten- 
burg, and  died  in  infancy  in  1850.  The  other  was  a girl, 
Therese  Elisabeth  Alexandra,  who  became  in  after  years 
her  brother’s  housekeeper,  guardian  angel  and  biographer. 
Her  three  names  were  those  of  the  three  noble  children 
her  father  had  grounded  in  the  humanities.  Elisabeth  — ■ 
who  married  toward  middle  age  and  is  best  known  as  Frau 
Forster-Nietzsche  — tells  us  practically  all  that  we  know 
about  the  Nietzsche  family  and  the  private  life  of  its  dis- 


6 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


tinguished  son. 1 The  clan  came  out  of  Poland,  like  so 
many  other  families  of  Eastern  Germany,  at  the  time  of 
the  sad,  vain  wars.  Legend  maintains  that  it  was  noble 
in  its  day  and  Nietzsche  himself  liked  to  think  so.  The 
name,  says  Elisabeth,  was  originally  Nietzschy.  “ Ger- 
many is  a great  nation,”  Nietzsche  would  say,  “ only 
because  its  people  have  so  much  Polish  blood  in  their  veins. 
...  I am  proud  of  my  Polish  descent.  I remember  that 
in  former  times  a Polish  noble,  by  his  simple  veto,  could 
overturn  the  resolution  of  a popular  assembly.  There  were 
giants  in  Poland  in  the  time  of  my  forefathers.”  He 
wrote  a tract  with  the  French  title  “ L'Origine  de  la  }amille 
de  Nietzsche  ” and  presented  the  manuscript  to  his  sister, 
as  a document  to  be  treasured  and  held  sacred.  She  tells 
us  that  he  was  fond  of  maintaining  that  the  Nietzsches 
had  suffered  greatly  and  fallen  from  vast  grandeur 
for  their  opinions,  religious  and  political.  He  had  no 
proof  of  this,  but  it  pleased  him  to  think  so. 

Pastor  Nietzsche  was  thrown  from  his  horse  in  1848 
and  died,  after  a lingering  illness,  on  July  28th,  1849,  when 
Friedrich  was  barely  five  years  old.  Frau  Nietzsche  then 
moved  her  little  family  to  Naumburg-on-the-Saale  — “a 
Christian,  conservative,  loyal  city.”  The  household 
consisted  of  the  mother,  the  two  children,  their  paternal 
grandmother  and  two  maiden  aunts  — the  sisters  of  the 
dead  pastor.  The  grandmother  was  something  of  a blue- 
stocking and  had  been,  in  her  day,  a member  of  that  queer 
circle  of  intellectuals  and  amateurs  which  raged  and 
roared  around  Goethe  at  Weimar.  But  that  was  in  the 
long  ago,  before  she  dreamed  of  becoming  the  wife  of  one 
1 “ Das  Leben  Friedrich  Nietzsche's 3 vols.  Leipsic,  1895-7-9. 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


7 


preacher  and  the  mother  of  another.  In  the  year  ’50  she 
was  well  of  all  such  youthful  fancies  and  there  was  no 
doubt  of  the  divine  revelations  beneath  her  pious  roof. 
Prayers  began  the  day  and  ended  the  day.  It  was  a house 
of  holy  women,  with  something  of  a convent’s  placidity 
and  quiet  exaltation.  Little  Friedrich  was  the  idol  in  the 
shrine.  It  was  the  hope  of  all  that  he  would  grow  up  into 
a man  illimitably  noble  and  impossibly  good. 

Pampered  thus,  the  boy  shrank  from  the  touch  of  the 
world’s  rough  hand.  His  sister  tells  us  that  he  disliked 
the  bad  little  boys  of  the  neighborhood,  who  robbed  bird’s 
nests,  raided  orchards  and  played  at  soldiers.  There 
appeared  in  him  a quaint  fastidiousness  which  went 
counter  to  the  dearest  ideals  of  the  healthy  young  male. 
His  school  fellows,  in  derision,  called  him  “ the  little 
pastor  ” and  took  delight  in  waylaying  him  and  venting 
upon  him  their  grotesque  and  barbarous  humor.  He 
liked  flowers  and  books  and  music  and  when  he  went 
abroad  it  was  for  solitary  walks.  He  could  recite  and 
sing  and  he  knew  the  Bible  so  well  that  he  was  able  to 
dispute  about  its  mysteries.  “ As  I think  of  him,”  said 
an  old  school-mate  years  afterward,  “ I am  forced  irre- 
sistibly into  a thought  of  the  12-year-old  Jesus  in  the 
Temple.”  “ The  serious  introspective  child,  with  his 
dignified  politeness,”  says  his  sister,  “ seemed  so  strange 
to  other  boys  that  friendly  advances  from  either  side  were 
out  of  the  question.” 

There  is  a picture  of  the  boy  in  all  the  glory  of  his 
first  long-tailed  coat.  His  trousers  stop  above  his  shoe- 
tops,  his  hair  is  long  and  his  legs  seem  mere  airy  filaments. 
As  one  gazes  upon  the  likeness  one  can  almost  smell  the 


8 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


soap  that  scoured  that  high,  shiny  brow  and  those  thin, 
white  cheeks.  The  race  of  such  seraphic  boys  has  died  out 
in  the  world.  Gone  are  their  slick,  plastered  locks  and 
their  translucent  ears ! Gone  are  their  ruffled  cuffs  and 
their  spouting  of  the  golden  text ! 

Nietzsche  wrote  verses  before  he  was  ten : pious, 
plaintive  verses  that  scanned  well  and  showed  rhymes  and 
metaphors  made  respectable  by  ages  of  honorable  em- 
ployment. His  maiden  effort,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  an 
elegy  entitled  “ The  Grave  of  My  Father.”  Later  on  he 
became  aware  of  material  things  and  sang  the  praises  of 
rose  and  sunset.  He  played  the  piano,  too,  and  knew  his 
Beethoven  well,  from  the  snares  for  the  left  hand  in 
“ Fur  Elise  ” to  the  raging  tumults  of  the  C minor  sym- 
phony. One  Sunday  - — ■ it  was  Ascension  day  — he  went 
to  the  village  church  and  heard  the  choir  sing  the  Halle- 
lujah Chorus  from  “ The  Messiah.”  Here  was  music 
that  benumbed  the  senses  and  soothed  the  soul  and,  boy 
as  he  was,  he  felt  its  supreme  beauty.  That  night  he  cov- 
ered pages  of  ruled  paper  with  impossible  pot-hooks.  He, 
too,  would  write  music  ! 

Later  on  the  difficulties  of  thorough-bass,  as  it  was 
taught  in  the  abyssmal  German  text-books  of  the  time, 
somewhat  dampened  his  ardor,  but  more  than  once  during 
his  youth  he  thought  seriously  of  becoming  a musician. 
His  first  really  ambitious  composition  was  a piano  piece 
called  “ Mondschein  auj  der  Pussta  ” — “ Moonlight  on 
the  Pussta  ” — the  pussta  being  the  flat  Bohemian 
prairie.  The  family  circle  was  delighted  with  this 
maiden  opus,  and  we  may  conjure  up  a picture  of  little 
Friedrich  playing  it  of  a quiet  evening  at  home, 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


9 


while  mother,  grandmother,  sister  and  aunts  gathered 
round  and  marvelled  at  his  genius.  In  later  life  he  wrote 
songs  and  sonatas,  and  — if  an  enemy  is  to  be  believed  — 
an  opera  in  the  grand  manner.  His  sister,  in  her  biog- 
raphy, prints  some  samples  of  his  music.  Candor 
compels  the  admission  that  it  is  even  worse  than  it  sounds. 

Nietzsche,  at  this  time,  still  seemed  like  piety  on  a 
monument,  but  as  much  as  he  revered  his  elders  and  as 
much  as  he  relied  upon  their  infallibility,  there  were  yet 
problems  which  assailed  him  and  gave  him  disquiet. 
When  he  did  not  walk  and  think  alone,  his  sister  was  his 
companion,  and  to  her  he  opened  his  heart,  as  one  might 
to  a sexless,  impersonal  confessor.  In  her  presence, 
indeed,  he  really  thought  aloud,  and  this  remained  his 
habit  until  the  end  of  his  life.  His  mind,  awakening, 
wandered  beyond  the  little  world  hedged  about  by  doting 
and  complacent  women.  Until  he  entered  the  gymnasium 
— that  great  weighing  place  of  German  brains  — he 
shrank  from  open  revolt,  and  even  from  the  thought  of  it, 
but  he  could  not  help  dwelling  upon  the  mysteries  that  rose 
before  him.  There  were  things  upon  which  the  scriptures, 
search  them  as  he  might,  seemed  to  throw  no  light,  and 
of  which  mothers  and  grandmothers  and  maiden  aunts 
did  not  discourse.  “ One  day,”  says  Elisabeth,  “ when  he 
was  yet  very  young,  he  said  to  me:  ‘You  mustn’t  expect 
me  to  believe  those  silly  stories  about  storks  bringing 
babies.  Man  is  a mammal  and  a mammal  must  get  his 
own  children  for  himself.’  ” Every  child,  perhaps, 
ponders  such  problems,  but  in  the  vast  majority  knowledge 
must  wait  until  it  may  enter  fortuitously  and  from  without. 
Nietzsche  did  not  belong  to  the  majority.  To  him  ideas 


IO 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


were  ever  things  to  be  sought  out  eagerly,  to  be  weighed 
calmly,  to  be  tried  in  the  fire.  For  weal  or  for  woe, 
the  cornerstones  of  his  faith  were  brought  forth,  with 
sweat  and  pain,  from  the  quarry  of  his  own  mind. 

Nietzsche  went  to  various  village  schools  — public  and 
private  — until  he  was  ten,  dutifully  trudging  away  each 
morning  with  knapsack  and  lunch-basket.  He  kissed  his 
mother  at  the  gate  when  he  departed  and  she  was  waiting 
for  him,  with  another  kiss,  when  he  returned.  As  happiness 
goes,  his  was  probably  a happy  childhood.  The  fierce 
joy  of  boyish  combat  — of  fighting,  of  robbing,  of  slaying 
— was  never  his,  but  to  a child  so  athirst  for  knowledge, 
each  fresh  discovery  — about  the  sayings  of  Luther,  the 
lions  of  Africa,  the  properties  of  an  inverted  fraction  — 
must  have  brought  its  thrill.  But  as  he  came  to  the  last 
year  of  his  first  decade,  unanswerable  questions  brought 
their  discontent  and  disquiet  — as  they  do  to  all  of  us. 
There  is  a feeling  of  oppression  and  poignant  pain  in  facing 
problems  that  defy  solution  and  facts  that  refuse  to  fit 
into  ordered  chains.  It  is  only  when  mastery  follows  that 
the  fine  stimulation  of  conscious  efficiency  drowns  out  all 
moody  vapors. 

When  Nietzsche  went  to  the  gymnasium  his  whole 
world  was  overturned.  Here  boys  were  no  longer  mute 
and  hollow  vessels,  to  be  stuffed  with  predigested  learning, 
but  human  beings  whose  approach  to  separate  entity  was 
recognized.  It  was  possible  to  ask  questions  and  to  argue 
moot  points,  and  teaching  became  less  the  administration 
of  a necessary  medicine  and  more  the  sharing  of  a delight- 
ful meal.  Your  German  school-master  is  commonly  a 
martinet,  and  his  birch  is  never  idle,  but  he  has  the  saving 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


II 


grace  of  loving  his  trade  and  of  readily  recognizing  true 
diligence  in  his  pupils.  History  does  not  record  the  name 
of  the  pedagogue  who  taught  Nietzsche  at  the  Naumburg 
gymnasium,  but  he  must  have  been  one  who  ill  deserved 
his  oblivion.  He  fed  the  eager,  inquiring  mind  of  his  little 
student  and  made  a new  boy  of  him.  The  old  unhealthy, 
uncanny  embodiment  of  a fond  household’s  impossible 
dreams  became  more  likeable  and  more  human.  His 
exclusiveness  and  fastidiousness  were  native  and  ineradi- 
cable, perhaps,  for  they  remained  with  him,  in  some  degree, 
his  whole  life  long,  but  his  thirst  for  knowledge  and  yearn- 
ing for  disputation  soon  led  him  to  the  discovery  that  there 
were  other  boys  worth  cultivating : other  boys  whose 
thoughts,  like  his  own,  rose  above  misdemeanor  and 
horse-play.  With  two  such  he  formed  a quick  friendship, 
and  they  were  destined  to  influence  him  greatly  to  the  end 
of  his  youth.  They  organized  a club  for  mutual  culture, 
gave  it  the  sonorous  name  of  “ Der  litter arischen  Vereini- 
gung  Germania  ” (“  The  German  Literary  Association  ”) 
and  drew  up  an  elaborate  scheme  of  study.  Once  a week 
there  was  a meeting,  at  which  each  of  the  three  submitted 
an  essay  or  a musical  composition  to  the  critical  scrutiny 
of  the  others.  They  waded  out  into  the  deep  water.  One 
week  they  discussed  “ The  Infancy  of  Nations,”  and  after 
that,  “ The  Daemonic  Element  in  Music,”  “ Napoleon 
III  ” and  “ Fatalism  in  History.”  Despite  its  praise- 
worthy earnestness,  this  program  causes  a smile  — and 
so  does  the  transformation  of  the  retiring  and  well- 
scrubbed  little  Nietzsche  we  have  been  observing  into  the 
long,  gaunt  Nietzsche  of  14,  with  a yearning  for  the  com- 
panionship of  his  fellows,  and  a voice  beginning  to  grow 


12 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


comically  harsh  and  deep,  and  a mind  awhirl  with  unutter- 
able things. 

Nietzsche  was  a brilliant  and  spectacular  pupil  and 
soon  won  a scholarship  at  Pforta,  a famous  and  ancient 
preparatory  academy  not  far  away.  Pforta,  in  those  days, 
was  of  a dignity  comparable  to  Eton’s  or  Harrow’s.  It 
was  a great  school,  but  tradition  overpowered  it.  Violent 
combats  between  amateur  sages  were  not  encouraged : 
it  was  a place  for  gentlemen  to  acquire  Euclid  and  the 
languages  in  a decent,  gentlemanly  way,  and  not  an  arena 
for  gawky  country  philosophers  to  prance  about  in.  But 
Nietzsche,  by  this  time,  had  already  become  a frank  rebel 
and  delighted  in  elaborating  and  controverting  the  doc- 
trines of  the  learned  doctors.  He  drew  up  a series  of 
epigrams  under  the  head  of  “ Ideen  ” and  thought  so  well 
of  them  that  he  sent  them  home,  to  astonish  and  alarm 
his  mother.  Some  of  them  exhibited  a quite  remarkable 
faculty  for  pithy  utterance  — as,  for  example,  “ War 
begets  poverty  and  poverty  begets  peace  ” — while  others 
were  merely  opaque  renderings  of  thoughts  half  formed. 
He  began  to  believe  in  his  own  mental  cunning,  with  a 
sincerity  which  never  left  him,  and,  as  a triumphant  proof 
of  it,  he  drew  up  a series  of  syllogisms  designed  to  make 
homesickness  wither  and  die.  Thus  he  wrestled  with  life’s 
problems  as  his  boy’s  eyes  saw  them. 

All  this  was  good  training  for  the  philosopher,  but  to 
the  Pforta  professors  it  gave  disquiet.  Nietzsche  became 
a bit  too  sure  of  himself  and  a bit  too  arrogant  for  disci- 
pline. It  seemed  to  him  a waste  of  time  to  wrestle  with 
the  studies  that  every  oafish  baron’s  son  and  future  guards- 
man sought  to  master.  He  neglected  mathematics  and 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


13 


gave  himself  up  to  the  hair-splitting  of  the  Eleatics  and  the 
Pythagoreans,  the  Sophists  and  the  Skeptics.  He  pro- 
nounced his  high  curse  and  anathema  upon  geography  and 
would  have  none  of  it.  The  result  was  that  when  he  went 
up  for  final  examination  he  writhed  and  floundered  miser- 
ably and  came  within  an  ace  of  being  set  down  for  further 
and  more  diligent  labor  with  his  books.  Only  his  remark- 
able mastery  of  the  German  language  and  his  vast  knowl- 
edge of  Christian  doctrine  — a legacy  from  his  pious 
childhood  — saved  him.  The  old  Nietzsche  — the  shrink- 
ing mother’s  darling  of  Naumburg  — was  now  but  a 
memory.  The  Nietzsche  that  went  up  to  Bonn  was  a 
young  man  with  a touch  of  cynicism  and  one  not  a little 
disposed  to  pit  his  sneer  against  the  jurisprudence  of  the 
world : a young  man  with  a swagger,  a budding  mous- 
tache and  a head  full  of  violently  novel  ideas  about  every- 
thing under  the  sun. 

Nietzsche  entered  Bonn  in  October,  1864,  when  he  was 
just  20  years  old.  He  was  enrolled  as  a student  of  philology 
and  theology,  but  the  latter  was  a mere  concession  to 
family  faith  and  tradition,  made  grudgingly,  and  after  the 
first  semester,  the  reverend  doctors  of  exegetics  knew  him 
no  more.  At  the  start  he  thought  the  university  a delight- 
ful place  and  its  people  charming.  The  classrooms  and 
beer  gardens  were  full  of  young  Germans  like  himself, 
who  debated  the  doings  of  Bismarck,  composed  eulogies  of 
Darwin,  sang  Rabelaisian  songs  in  bad  Latin,  kept  dogs, 
wore  ribbons  on  their  walking  sticks,  fought  duels,  and 
drank  unlimited  steins  of  pale  beer.  In  the  youth  of  every 
man  there  comes  over  him  a sudden  yearning  to  be  a good 
fellow : to  be  “ Bill  ” or  “ Jim  ” to  multitudes,  and  to 


14 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


go  down  into  legend  with  Sir  John  Falstaff  and  Tom 
Jones.  This  melancholy  madness  seized  upon  Nietzsche 
during  his  first  year  at  Bonn.  He  frequented  the  theatres 
and  posed  as  a connoisseur  of  opera  boujje,  malt  liquor 
and  the  female  form  divine.  He  went  upon  students’ 
walking  tours  and  carved  his  name  upon  the  mutilated 
tables  of  country  inns.  He  joined  a student  corps,  bought 
him  a little  cap  and  set  up  shop  as  a devil  of  a fellow.  His 
mother  was  not  poor,  but  she  could  not  afford  the  outlays 
that  these  ambitious  enterprises  required.  Friedrich 
overdrew  his  allowance  and  the  good  woman,  no  doubt, 
wept  about  it,  as  mothers  will,  and  wondered  that  learning 
came  so  dear. 

But  the  inevitable  reaction  followed.  Nietzsche  was  not 
designed  by  nature  for  a hero  of  pot-houses  and  duelling 
sheds.  The  old  fastidiousness  asserted  itself  — that 
queer,  unhealthy  fastidiousness  which,  in  his  childhood, 
had  set  him  apart  from  other  boys,  and  was  destined,  all 
his  life  long,  to  make  him  shrink  from  too  intimate  contact 
with  his  fellow-men.  The  touch  of  the  crowd  disgusted 
him : he  had  an  almost  insane  fear  of  demeaning  himself. 
All  of  this  feeling  had  been  obscured  for  awhile,  by  the 
strange  charm  of  new  delights  and  new  companions,  but 
in  the  end,  the  gloomy  spinner  of  fancies  triumphed  over 
the  university  buck.  Nietzsche  resigned  from  his  student 
corps,  burned  his  walking  sticks,  foreswore  smoking  and 
roistering,  and  bade  farewell  to  Johann  Strauss  and 
Offenbach  forever.  The  days  of  his  youth  — of  his  care- 
free, merry  gamboling  — were  over.  Hereafter  he  was 
all  solemnity  and  all  seriousness. 

“ From  these  early  experiences,”  says  his  sister,  “ there 


BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 


IS 


remained  with  him  a life-long  aversion  to  smoking,  beer- 
drinking and  the  whole  bier gemuthlichkeit.  He  main- 
tained that  people  who  drank  beer  and  smoked  pipes 
were  absolutely  incapable  of  understanding  him.  Such 
people,  he  thought,  lacked  +v,e  delicacy  and  clearness  of 
perception  necessary  to  grasp  profound  and  subtle  prob- 
lems.” 


if 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHER 

At  Bonn  Nietzsche  became  a student  of  Ritschl,  the 
famous  philologist,1  and  when  Ritschl  left  Bonn  for 
Leipsic,  Nietzsche  followed  him.  All  traces  of  the  good 
fellow  had  disappeared  and  the  student  that  remained 
was  not  unlike  those  sophomores  of  medieval  Toulouse 
who  “ rose  from  bed  at  4 o’clock,  and  having  prayed  to 
God,  went  at  5 o’clock  to  their  studies,  their  big  books 
under  their  arms,  their  inkhoms  and  candles  in  their 
hands.”  Between  teacher  and  pupil  there  grew  up  a bond 
of  strong  friendship.  Nietzsche  was  taken,  too,  under 
the  wing  of  motherly  old  Frau  Ritschl,  who  invited  him  to 
her  afternoons  of  coffee  and  cinnamon  cake  and  to  her 
evening  soirees,  where  he  met  the  great  men  of  the  univer- 
sity world  and  the  eminent  strangers  who  came  and  went. 
To  Ritschl  the  future  philosopher  owed  many  things, 
indeed,  including  his  sound  knowledge  of  the  ancients,  his 
first  (and  last)  university  appointment  and  his  meeting 
with  Richard  Wagner.  Nietzsche  always  looked  back 

1 Friedrich  Wilhelm  Ritschl  (1806-1876),  the  foremost  philologist  of 
modern  times.  He  became  a professor  of  classical  literature  and 
rhetoric  in  1839  and  founded  the  science  of  historical  literary  criticism, 
as  we  know  it  to-day. 

16 


BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHER  17 


upon  these  days  with  pleasure  and  there  was  ever  a warm 
spot  in  his  heart  for  the  kindly  old  professor  who  led  him 
up  to  grace. 

Two  years  or  more  were  thus  spent,  and  then,  in  the 
latter  part  of  1867,  Nietzsche  began  his  term  of  com- 
pulsory military  sendee  in  the  fourth  regiment  of  Prussian 
field  artillery.  He  had  hoped  to  escape  because  he  was 
near-sighted  and  the  only  son  of  a widow,  but  a watchful 
oberst-lieutenant  found  loopholes  in  the  law  and  so  en- 
snared him;  He  seems  to  have  been  some  sort  of  officer, 
for  a photograph  of  the  period  shows  him  with  epaulets 
and  a sword.  But  lieutenant  or  sergeant,  soldiering  was 
scarcely  his  forte,  and  he  cut  a sorry  figure  on  a horse. 
After  a few  months  of  unwilling  service,  in  fact,  he  had 
a riding  accident  and  came  near  dying  as  his  father  had 
died  before  him.  As  it  was  he  wrenched  his  breast  muscles 
so  badly  that  he  was  condemned  by  a medical  survey  and 
discharged  from  the  army. 

During  his  long  convalescence  he  busied  himself  with 
philological  studies  and  began  his  first  serious  professional 
work  — essays  on  the  Theogony  of  Hesiod,  the  sources 
of  Diogenes  Laertius  and  the  eternal  strife  between 
Hesiod  and  Homer.  He  also  made  an  index  to  an  elabo- 
rate collection  of  German  historical  fragments  and  per- 
formed odd  tasks  of  like  sort  for  various  professors.  In 
October,  1868,  he  returned  to  Leipsic  — not  as  an  under- 
graduate, but  as  a special  student.  This  change  was 
advantageous,  for  it  gave  him  greater  freedom  of  action 
and  protected  him  from  that  student  bonhomie  he  had 
learned  to  despise.  Again  old  Ritschl  was  his  teacher  and 
friend  and  again  Frau  Ritschl  welcomed  him  to  her 


i8 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


salon  and  gave  him  of  her  good  counsel  and  her  excellent 
coffee. 

Meanwhile  there  had  occurred  something  that  was 
destined  to  direct  and  color  the  whole  stream  of  his  life. 
This  was  his  discovery  of  Arthur  Schopenhauer.  In  the 
6o’s,  it  would  appear,  the  great  pessimist  was  still  scarcely 
more  than  a name  in  the  German  universities,  which,  for 
all  their  later  heterodoxy,  clung  long  to  their  ancient  first 
causes.  Nietzsche  knew  nothing  of  him,  and  in  the  semi- 
naries of  Leipsic  not  a soul  maintained  him.  Of  Kant  and 
of  Hegel  there  was  talk  unlimited,  and  of  Lotze  and 
Fichte  there  were  riotous  disputations  that  roared  and 
raged  about  the  class-room  of  Fechner,  then  the  university 
professor  of  philosophy.  But  of  Schopenhauer  nothing 
was  heard,  and  so,  when  Nietzsche,  rambling  through 
an  old  Leipsic  bookshop,  happened  upon  a second-hand 
copy  of  “ Die  Welt  als  Wille  und  Vorstellung,”  1 a new 
world  came  floating  into  his  view.  This  was  in  1865. 

“ I took  the  book  to  my  lodgings,”  he  said  years  after- 
ward, “ and  flung  myself  on  a sofa  and  read  and  read  and 
read.  It  seemed  as  if  Schopenhauer  were  addressing  me 
personally.  I felt  his  enthusiasm  and  seemed  to  see  him 
before  me.  Every  line  cried  aloud  for  renunciation,  denial, 
resignation ! ” 

So  much  for  the  first  flush  of  the  ecstasy  of  discovery. 
That  Nietzsche  entirely  agreed  with  everything  in  the  book, 
even  in  his  wildest  transports  of  admiration,  is  rather 
doubtful.  He  was  but  21  — the  age  of  great  passions  and 

1 Arthur  Schopenhauer  (1788-1860)  published  this  book,  his  magnum 
opus , at  Leipsic  in  1819.  It  has  been  translated  into  English  as  “The 
World  as  Will  and  Idea”  and  has  appeared  in  many  editions. 


BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHER  19 


great  romance  — and  he  was  athirst  for  some  writing  that 
would  solve  the  problems  left  unanswered  by  the  accepted 
sages,  but  it  is  probable  that  when  he  shouted  the  Schopen- 
hauer manifesto  loudest  he  read  into  the  text  wild  varia- 
tions of  his  own.  The  premises  of  the  pessimist  gave  credit 
and  order  to  thoughts  that  had  been  rising  up  in  his  own 
mind ; but  the  conclusions,  if  he  subscribed  to  them  at  all, 
led  him  far  afield.  No  doubt  he  was  like  one  of  those 
fantastic  messiahs  of  new  cults  who  search  the  scriptures 
for  testimony  — and  find  it.  Late  in  life,  when  he  was 
accused  of  inconsistency  in  first  deifying  Schopenhauer 
and  then  damning  him,  he  made  this  defense,  and  despite 
the  derisive  sneers  of  his  enemies,  it  seemed  a fairly  good 
one. 

Schopenhauer’s  argument,  to  put  it  briefly,  was  that 
the  will  to  exist  — the  primary  instinct  of  life  — was  the 
eternal  first  cause  of  all  human  actions,  motives  and  ideas. 
The  old  philosophers  of  Christendom  had  regarded  intelli- 
gence as  the  superior  of  instinct.  Some  of  them  thought 
that  an  intelligent  god  ruled  the  universe  and  that  nothing 
happened  without  his  knowledge  and  desire.  Others 
believed  that  man  was  a free  agent,  that  whatever  he  did 
was  the  result  of  his  own  thought  and  choice,  and  that 
it  was  right,  in  consequence,  to  condemn  him  to  hell  for 
his  sins  and  to  exalt  him  to  heaven  for  any  goodness  he 
might  chance  to  show.  Schopenhauer  turned  all  this 
completely  about.  Intelligence,  he  said,  was  not  the  source 
of  will,  but  its  effect.  When  fife  first  appeared  upon  earth, 
it  had  but  one  aim  and  object : that  of  perpetuating  itself. 
This  instinct,  he  said,  was  still  at  the  bottom  of  every 
function  of  all  living  beings.  Intelligence  grew  out  of  the 


20 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


fact  that  mankind,  in  the  course  of  ages,  began  to  notice 
that  certain  manifestations  of  the  will  to  live  were  followed 
by  certain  invariable  results.  This  capacity  of  perceiving 
was  followed  by  a capacity  for  remembering,  which  in  turn 
produced  a capacity  for  anticipating.  An  intelligent  man, 
said  Schopenhauer,  was  merely  one  who  remembered  so 
many  facts  (the  result  either  of  personal  experience  or  of 
the  transmitted  experience  of  others)  that  he  could  separate 
them  into  groups  and  observe  their  relationship,  one  to  the 
other,  and  hazard  a close  guess  as  to  their  future  effects ; 
i.  e.  could  reason  about  them. 

Going  further,  Schopenhauer  pointed  out  that  this  will 
to  exist,  this  instinct  to  preserve  and  protect  life,  this  old 
Adam,  was  to  blame  for  the  unpleasant  things  of  life  as 
well  as  for  the  good  things  — that  it  produced  avarice, 
hatred  and  murder  just  as  well  as  industry,  resourcefulness 
and  courage  — that  it  led  men  to  seek  means  of  killing 
one  another  as  well  as  means  of  tilling  the  earth  and  pro- 
curing food  and  raiment.  He  showed,  yet  further,  that  its 
bad  effects  were  a great  deal  more  numerous  than  its  good 
effects  and  so  accounted  for  the  fact  — which  many  men 
before  him  had  observed  — that  life,  at  best,  held  more 
of  sorrow  than  of  joy. 1 

The  will-to-live,  argued  Schopenhauer,  was  responsible 
for  all  this.  Pain,  he  believed,  would  always  outweigh 
pleasure  in  this  sad  old  world  until  men  ceased  to  want  to 
live  — until  no  one  desired  food  or  drink  or  house  or  wife 

1 Schopenhauer  ('■'■Nach.tr age  zur  Lehre  vom  Leiden  der  Welt ” ) puts 
the  argument  thus  : “ Pleasure  is  never  as  pleasant  as  we  expect  it  to 
be  and  pain  is  always  more  painful.  The  pain  in  the  world  always  out- 
weighs the  pleasure.  If  you  don’t  believe  it,  compare  the  respective  feel- 
ings of  two  animals,  one  of  which  is  eating  the  other.” 


BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHER  21 

or  money.  To  put  it  more  briefly,  he  held  that  true  happi- 
ness would  be  impossible  until  mankind  had  killed  will 
with  will,  which  is  to  say,  until  the  will-to-live  was  willed 
out  of  existence.  Therefore  the  happiest  man  was  the  one 
who  had  come  nearest  this  end  — the  man  who  had  killed 
all  the  more  obvious  human  desires,  hopes  and  as- 
pirations — the  solitary  ascetic  — the  monk  in  his  cell  — 
the  soaring,  starving  poet  — the  cloud- enshrouded  philos- 
opher. 

Nietzsche  very  soon  diverged  from  this  conclusion.  He 
believed,  with  Schopenhauer,  that  human  life,  at  best, 
was  often  an  infliction  and  a torture,  but  in  his  very  first 
book  he  showed  that  he  admired,  not  the  ascetic  who  tried 
to  escape  from  the  wear  and  tear  of  life  altogether,  but  the 
proud,  stiff-necked  hero  who  held  his  balance  in  the  face 
of  both  seductive  pleasure  and  staggering  pain;  who 
cultivated  within  himself  a sublime  indifference,  so  that 
happiness  and  misery,  to  him,  became  mere  words,  and  no 
catastrophe,  human  or  superhuman,  could  affright  or 
daunt  him.1 

It  is  obvious  that  there  is  a considerable  difference  be- 
tween these  ideas,  for  all  their  similarity  in  origin  and  for 
all  Nietzsche’s  youthful  worship  of  Schopenhauer.  Niet- 
zsche, in  fact,  was  so  enamoured  by  the  honesty  and 
originality  of  what  may  be  called  the  data  of  Schopen- 
hauer’s philosophy  that  he  took  the  philosophy  itself  rather 
on  trust  and  did  not  begin  to  inquire  into  it  closely  or  to 

1 Later  on,  in  “ Menschliches  allzu  Menschlich.es ,”  II,  Nietzsche 
argued  that  the  ascetic  was  either  a coward,  who  feared  the  tempta- 
tions of  pleasure  and  the  agonies  of  pain,  or  an  exhausted  worlding 
who  had  become  satiated  with  life. 


22 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


compare  it  carefully  with  his  own  ideas  until  after  he  had 
committed  himself  in  a most  embarrassing  fashion.  The 
same  phenomena  is  no  curiosity  in  religion,  science  or 
politics. 

Before  a realization  of  these  differences  quite  dawned 
upon  Nietzsche  he  was  busied  with  other  affairs.  In  1869, 
when  he  was  barely  25,  he  was  appointed,  upon  Ritschl’s 
recommendation,  to  the  chair  of  classical  philology  at  the 
University  of  Basel,  in  Switzerland,  an  ancient  stronghold 
of  Lutheran  theology.  He  had  no  degree,  but  the  Univer- 
sity of  Leipsic  promptly  made  him  a doctor  of  philosophy, 
without  thesis  or  examination,  and  on  April  13th  he  left 
the  old  home  at  Naumburg  to  assume  his  duties.  Thus 
passed  that  pious  household.  The  grandmother  had  died 
long  before — -in  1856  — and  one  of  the  maiden  aunts 
had  preceded  her  to  the  grave  by  a year.  The  other, 
long  ill,  had  followed  in  1867.  But  Nietzsche’s  mother 
lived  until  1897,  though  gradually  estranged  from  him 
by  his  opinions,  and  his  sister,  as  we  know,  survived  him. 

Nietzsche  was  officially  professor  of  philology,  but  he 
also  became  teacher  of  Greek  in  the  pedagogium  attached 
to  the  University.  He  worked  like  a Trojan  and  mixed 
Schopenhauer  and  Hesiod  in  his  class-room  discourses 
upon  the  origin  of  Greek  verbs  and  other  such  dull  sub- 
jects. But  it  is  not  recorded  that  he  made  a very  pro- 
found impression,  except  upon  a relatively  small  circle. 
His  learning  was  abyssmal,  but  he  was  far  too  impatient 
and  unsympathetic  to  be  a good  teacher.  His  classes,  in 
fact,  were  never  large,  except  in  the  pedagogium.  This, 
however,  may  have  been  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  in 
1869,  as  in  later  years,  there  were  comparatively  few 


BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHER  23 


persons  impractical  enough  to  spend  their  days  and  nights 
in  the  study  of  philology. 

In  1870  came  the  Franco- Prussian  war  and  Nietzsche 
decided  to  go  to  the  front.  Despite  his  hatred  of  all  the 
cant  of  cheap  patriotism  and  his  pious  thankfulness  that 
he  was  a Pole  and  not  a German,  he  was  at  bottom  a 
good  citizen  and  perfectly  willing  to  suffer  and  bleed  for 
his  country.  But  unluckily  he  had  taken  out  Swiss 
naturalization  papers  in  order  to  be  able  to  accept  his  ap- 
pointment at  Basel,  and  so,  as  the  subject  of  a neutral 
state,  he  had  to  go  to  the  war,  not  as  a warrior,  but  as  a 
hospital  steward. 

Even  as  it  was,  Nietzsche  came  near  giving  his  life  to 
Germany.  He  was  not  strong  physically  — he  had  suffered 
from  severe  headaches  as  far  back  as  1862  — and  his  hard 
work  at  Basel  had  further  weakened  him.  On  the  battle- 
fields of  France  he  grew  ill.  Diphtheria  and  what  seems 
to  have  been  cholera  morbus  attacked  him  and  when  he 
finally  reached  home  again  he  was  a neurasthenic  wreck. 
Ever  thereafter  his  life  was  one  long  struggle  against  dis- 
ease. He  suffered  from  migraine,  that  most  terrible  disease 
of  the  nerves,  and  chronic  catarrh  of  the  stomach  made  him 
a dyspeptic.  Unable  to  eat  or  sleep,  he  resorted  to  narcotics, 
and  according  to  his  sister,  he  continued  their  use  through- 
out his  life.  “ He  wanted  to  get  well  quickly,”  she  says, 
“ and  so  took  double  doses.”  Nietzsche,  indeed,  was  a 
slave  to  drugs,  and  more  than  once  in  after  life,  long  before 
insanity  finally  ended  his  career,  he  gave  evidence  of 
it. 

Despite  his  illness  he  insisted  upon  resuming  work, 
but  during  the  following  winter  he  was  obliged  to  take  a 


24 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


vacation  in  Italy.  Meanwhile  he  had  delivered  lectures 
to  his  classes  on  the  Greek  drama  and  two  of  these  he 
revised  and  published,  in  1872,  as  his  first  book,  “ Die 
Geburt  der  Tragodie”  (“The  Birth  of  Tragedy”). 
Engelmann,  the  great  Leipsic  publisher,  declined  it,  but 
Fritsch,  of  the  same  city,  put  it  into  type.1  This  book 
greatly  pleased  his  friends,  but  the  old-line  philologists 
of  the  time  thought  it  wild  and  extravagant,  and  it  almost 
cost  Nietzsche  his  professorship.  Students  were  advised 
to  keep  away  from  him,  and  during  the  winter  of  1872-3, 
it  is  said,  he  had  no  pupils  at  all. 

Nevertheless  the  book,  for  all  its  iconoclasm,  was  an 
event.  It  sounded  Nietzsche’s  first,  faint  battle-cry  and 
put  the  question  mark  behind  many  things  that  seemed 
honorable  and  holy  in  philology.  Most  of  the  philologists 
of  that  time  were  German  savants  of  the  comic-paper  sort, 
and  their  lives  were  spent  in  wondering  why  one  Greek 
poet  made  the  name  of  a certain  plant  masculine  while 
another  made  it  feminine.  Nietzsche,  passing  over  such 
scholastic  futilities,  burrowed  down  into  the  heart  of  Greek 
literature.  Why,  he  asked  himself,  did  the  Greeks  take 
pleasure  in  witnessing  representations  of  bitter,  hopeless 
conflicts,  and  how  did  this  form  of  entertainment  arise 
among  them?  Later  on,  his  conclusions  will  be  given  at 
length,  but  in  this  place  it  may  be  well  to  sketch  them  in 

1 Begun  in  1869,  this  maiden  work  was  dedicated  to  Richard  Wagner. 
At  Wagner’s  suggestion  Nietzsche  eliminated  a great  deal  of  matter  in 
the  original  draft.  The  full  title  was  “ The  Birth  of  Tragedy  from  the 
Spirit  of  Music,”  but  this  was  changed,  in  1886,  when  a third  edition 
was  printed,  to  “ The  Birth  of  Tragedy,  or  Hellenism  and  Pessimism.” 
Nietzsche  then  also  added  a long  preface,  entitled  “ An  Attempt  at 
Self-Criticism.”  The  material  originally  excluded  was  published  in  1896- 


BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  PHILOSOPHER 


outline,  because  of  the  bearing  they  have  upon  his  later 
work,  and  even  upon  the  trend  of  his  life. 

In  ancient  Greece,  he  pointed  out  at  the  start,  Apollo, 
was  the  god  of  art  — of  life  as  it  was  recorded  and  inter- 
preted — and  Bacchus  Dionysus  was  the  god  of  life  itself 
of  eating,  drinking  and  making  merry,  of  dancing  and 
roistering,  of  everything  that  made  men  acutely  conscious 
ofThe- vitality  and  will  within  them.  The  difference  be- 
tween  tEe~things  they  represented  has  been  well  set  forth 
in  certain  homely  verses  addressed  by  Rudyard  Kipling 
to  Admiral  Robley  D.  Evans,  U.  S.  N. : 


Zogbaum  draws  with  a pencil 
And  I do  things  with  a pen, 

But  you  sit  up  in  a conning  tower, 
Bossing  eight  hundred  men. 


A 


To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given 

And  that’s  why  these  books  are  sent 
To  the  man  who  has  lived  more  stories  - 
Than  Zogbaum  or  I could  invent. 


Here  we  have  the  plain  distinction : Zogbaum  and 
Kipling  are  apollonic,  while  Evans  is  dionysian.  Epic 
poetry,  sculpture,  painting  and  story-telling  are  apollonic : 
they  represent,  not  life  itself,  but  some  one  man’s  visualized 
idea  of  life.  But  dancing,  great  deeds  and,  in  some  cases, 
music,  are  dionysian : they  are  part  and  parcel  of  life  as 
some  actual  human  being,  or  collection  of  human  beings, 
is  living  it. 

Nietzsche  maintained  that  Greek  art  was  at  first 
apollonic,  but  that  eventually  there  appeared  a dionysian 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


influence  — the  fruit,  perhaps,  of  contact  with  primitive, 
barbarous  peoples.  Ever  afterward  there  was  constant 
conflict  between  them  and  this  conflict  was  the  essence 
of  Greek  tragedy.  As  Sarcey  tells  us,  a play,  to  hold  our 
attention,  must  depict  some  sort  of  battle,  between  man 
and  man  or  idea  and  idea.  In  the  melodrama  of  today 
the  battle  is  between  hero  and  villain;  in  the  ancient 
Greek  tragedy  it  was  between  Apollo  and  Dionysus, 
between  the  life  contemplative  and  the  life  strenuous, 
between  law  and  outlaw,  between  the  devil  and  the 
seraphim. 

Nietzsche,  as  we  shall  see,  afterward  applied  this  dis- 
tinction in  morals  and  life  as  well  as  in  art.  He  called 
himself  a dionysian  and  the  crowning  volume  of  his 
system  of  philosophy,  which  he  had  barely  started  when 
insanity  overtook  him,  was  to  have  been  called  “ Diony- 
sus.” 


m 

BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 

Having  given  birth,  in  this  theory  of  Greek  tragedy, 
to  an  idea  which,  whatever  its  defects  otherwise,  was  at 
least  original,  understandable  and  workable,  Nietzsche 
began  to  be  conscious,  as  it  were,  of  his  own  intellect  — 
or,  in  his  sister’s  phrase,  “ to  understand  what  a great 
man  he  was.”  During  his  first  years  at  Basel  he  had  cut 
quite  a figure  in  academic  society,  for  he  was  an  excellent 
musician,  he  enjoyed  dancing  and  he  had  plenty  of 
pretty  things  to  say  to  the  ladies.  But  as  his  ideas  clari- 
fied and  he  found  himself  more  and  more  in  conflict  with 
the  pundits  about  him,  he  withdrew  within  himself,  and 
in  the  end  he  had  few  friends  save  Richard  and  Cosima 
Wagner,  who  lived  at  Tribschen,  not  far  away.  To  one 
of  his  turn  of  mind,  indeed,  the  atmosphere  of  the  college 
town  was  bound  to  grow  oppressive  soon  or  late.  Acutely 
aware  of  his  own  superiority,  he  showed  no  patience 
with  the  unctuous  complacency  of  dons  and  dignitaries, 
and  so  he  became  embroiled  in  various  conflicts,  and 
even  his  admirers  among  his  colleagues  seldom  ventured 
upon  friendly  advances. 

There  are  critics  who  see  in  all  this  proof  that  Nietzsche 
showed  signs  of  insanity  from  early  manhood,  but  as  a 


27 


28 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


matter  of  fact  it  was  his  abnormally  accurate  vision  and 
not  a vision  gone  awry,  that  made  him  stand  so  aloof 
from  his  fellows.  In  the  vast  majority  of  those  about  him 
he  saw  the  coarse  metal  of  sham  and  pretense  beneath 
the  showy  gilding  of  learning.  He  had  before  him,  at 
close  range,  a good  many  of  the  great  men  of  his  time  — 
the  intellectuals  whose  word  was  law  in  the  schools.  He 
saw  them  on  parade  and  he  saw  them  in  their  shirt  sleeves. 
What  wonder  that  he  lost  all  false  reverence  for  them  and 
began  to  estimate  them  in  terms,  not  of  their  dignity  and 
reputation,  but  of  their  actual  credibility  and  worth? 
It  was  inevitable  that  he  should  compare  his  own  ideas 
to  theirs,  and  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  perceive  the 
difference  between  his  own  fanatical  striving  for  the  truth 
and  the  easy  dependence  upon  precedent  and  formula 
which  lay  beneath  their  booming  bombast.  Thus  there 
arose  in  him  a fiery  loathing  for  all  authority,  and  a firm 
belief  that  his  own  opinion  regarding  any  matter  to  which 
he  had  given  thought  was  as  sound,  at  the  least,  as  any 
other  man’s.  Thenceforth  the  assertive  “ icli  ” began  to 
besprinkle  his  discourse  and  his  pages.  “ I condemn 
Christianity.  / have  given  to  mankind.  ...  I was  never 
yet  modest.  ...  I think.  ...  I say.  ...  I do.  . . 
Thus  he  hurled  his  javelin  at  authority  until  the  end. 

To  those  about  him,  perhaps,  Nietzsche  seemed  wild 
and  impossible,  but  it  is  not  recorded  that  any  one  ever 
looked  upon  him  as  ridiculous.  His  high  brow,  bared  by 
the  way  in  which  he  brushed  his  hair ; his  keen  eyes,  with 
their  monstrous  overhanging  brows,  and  his  immense,  un- 
trimmed moustache  gave  him  an  air  of  alarming  earnest- 
ness. Beside  the  pedagogues  about  him  — with  their 


BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 


29 


well-barbered,  professorial  beards,  their  bald  heads  and 
their  learned  spectacles  — he  seemed  like  some  incompre- 
hensible foreigner.  The  exotic  air  he  bore  delighted  him 
and  he  cultivated  it  assiduously.  He  regarded  himself 
as  a Polish  grandee  set  down  by  an  unkind  fate  among 
German  shopkeepers,  and  it  gave  him  vast  pleasure  when 
the  hotel  porters  and  street  beggars,  deceived  by  his 
disorderly  fapade,  called  him  “ The  Polack.” 

Thus  he  lived  and  had  his  being.  The  inquisitive  boy 
of  old  Naumburg,  the  impudent  youth  of  Pforta  and  the 
academic  free  lance  of  Bonn  and  Leipsic  had  become 
merged  into  a man  sure  of  himself  and  contemptuous  of 
all  whose  search  for  the  truth  was  hampered  or  hedged 
about  by  any  respect  for  statute  or  precedent.  He  saw 
that  the  philosophers  and  sages  of  the  day,  in  many  of 
their  most  gorgeous  flights  of  logic,  started  from  false 
premises,  and  he  observed  the  fact  that  certain  of  the 
dominant  moral,  political  and  social  maxims  of  the  time 
were  mere  foolishness.  It  struck  him,  too,  that  all  of  this 
faulty  ratiocination  — - all  of  this  assumption  of  outworn 
doctrines  and  dependence  upon  exploded  creeds  — was 
not  confined  to  the  confessedly  orthodox.  There  was 
fallacy  no  less  disgusting  in  the  other  camp.  The  professed 
apostles  of  revolt  were  becoming  as  bad  as  the  old  crusaders 
and  apologists. 

Nietzsche  harbored  a fevered  yearning  to  call  all  of 
these  false  prophets  to  book  and  to  reduce  their  fine  axioms 
to  absurdity.  Accordingly,  he  planned  a series  of  twenty- 
four  pamphlets  and  decided  to  call  them  “ Unzeitgemasse 
Betrachtungen,"  which  may  be  translated  as  “ Inopportune 
Speculations,”  or  more  clearly,  “ Essays  in  Sham-Smash- 


3° 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


ing.”  In  looking  about  for  a head  to  smash  in  essay 
number  one,  his  eye,  naturally  enough,  alighted  upon  that 
of  David  Strauss,  the  favorite  philosopher  and  fashionable 
iconoclast  of  the  day.  Strauss  had  been  a preacher  but 
had  renounced  the  cloth  and  set  up  shop  as  a critic  of 
Christianity.1  He  had  labored  with  good  intentions,  no 
doubt,  but  the  net  result  of  all  his  smug  agnosticism  was 
that  his  disciples  were  as  self-satisfied,  bigoted  and  preju- 
diced in  the  garb  of  agnostics  as  they  had  been  before  as 
Christians.  Nietzsche’s  clear  eye  saw  this  and  in  the  first 
of  his  little  pamphlets,  “ David  Strauss,  der  Bekenner  und 
der  Schrijtsteller  ” (“  David  Strauss,  the  Confessor  and  the 
Writer”),  he  bore  down  upon  Strauss’  bourgeoise  pseudo- 
skepticism most  savagely.  This  was  in  1873. 

“ Strauss,”  he  said,  “ utterly  evades  the  question,  What 
is  the  meaning  of  life?  He  had  an  opportunity  to  show 
courage,  to  turn  his  back  upon  the  Philistines,  and  to  boldly 
deduce  a new  morality  from  that  constant  warfare  which 
destroys  all  but  the  fittest,  but  to  do  this  would  have 
required  a love  of  truth  infinitely  higher  than  that  which 
spends  itself  in  violent  invectives  against  parsons,  miracles 
and  the  historical  humbug  of  the  resurrection.  Strauss 
had  no  such  courage.  Had  he  worked  out  the  Darwinian 
doctrine  to  its  last  decimal  he  would  have  had  the  Philis- 
tines against  him  to  a man.  As  it  is,  they  are  with  him. 
He  has  wasted  his  time  in  combatting  Christianity’s  non- 
essentials.  For  the  idea  at  the  bottom  of  it  he  has  pro- 

1 David  Friedrich  Strauss  (1808-74)  sprang  into  fame  with  his  “ Das 
Leben  Jesn,"  1835  (Eng.  tr.  by  George  Eliot,  1846),  but  the  book  which 
served  as  Nietzsche’s  target  was  “ Der  alte  und  der  neue  Glaube  ” (“  The 
Old  Faith  and  the  New”),  1872. 


BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 


31 

posed  no  substitute.  In  consequence,  his  philosophy  is 
stale.”  1 

As  a distinguished  critic  has  pointed  out,  Nietzsche’s 
attack  was  notable,  not  only  for  its  keen  analysis  and 
ruthless  honesty,  but  also  for  its  courage.  It  required  no 
little  bravery,  three  years  after  Sedan,  to  tell  the  Germans 
that  the  new  culture  which  constituted  their  pride  was 
rotten,  and  that,  unless  it  were  purified  in  the  fire  of  abso- 
lute truth,  it  might  one  day  wreck  their  civilization. 

In  the  year  following  Nietzsche  returned  to  the  attack 
with  a criticism  of  history,  which  was  then  the  fashionable 
science  of  the  German  universities,  on  account,  chiefly, 
of  its  usefulness  in  exploding  the  myths  of  Christianity. 
He  called  his  essay  “ Vom  Nutzen  und  Nachtheil  der 
Histone  jiir  das  Leben  ” (“  On  the  Good  and  Bad  Effects 
of  History  upon  Human  Life  ”)  and  in  it  he  took  issue 
with  the  reigning  pedagogues  and  professors  of  the  day. 
There  was  much  hard  thinking  and  no  little  good  writing 
in  this  essay  and  it  made  its  mark.  The  mere  study  of 
history,  argued  Nietzsche,  unless  some  definite  notion 
regarding  the  destiny  of  man  were  kept  ever  in  mind,  was 
misleading  and  confusing.  There  was  great  danger  in 
assuming  that  everything  which  happened  was  part  of 
some  divine  and  mysterious  plan  for  the  ultimate  attain- 
ment of  perfection.  As  a matter  of  fact,  many  historical 
events  were  meaningless,  and  this  was  particularly  true 
of  those  expressions  of  “ governments,  public  opinion  and 
majorities  ” which  historians  were  prone  to  accentuate. 
To  Nietzsche  the  ideas  and  doings  of  peoples  seemed 
infinitely  less  important  than  the  ideas  and  doings  of 

‘ “ David  Strauss,  der  Bekenner  und  der  Schriftsteller”  § 7. 


32 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


exceptional  individuals.  To  put  it  more  simply,  he 
believed  that  one  man,  Hannibal,  was  of  vastly  more  im- 
portance to  the  world  than  all  the  other  Carthaginians 
of  his  time  taken  together.  Herein  we  have  a reappearance 
of  Dionysus  and  a foreshadowing  of  the  herrenmoral  and 
superman  of  later  days. 

Nietzsche’s  next  essay  was  devoted  to  Schopenhauer 
and  was  printed  in  1874.  He  called  it  “ Schopenhauer 
als  Erzieher  ” (“  Schopenhauer  as  a Teacher  ”)  and  in  it 
he  laid  his  burnt  offering  upon  the  altar  of  the  great  pessi- 
mist, who  was  destined  to  remain  his  hero,  if  no  longer 
his  god,  until  the  end.  Nietzsche  was  already  beginning 
to  read  rebellious  ideas  of  his  own  into  “ The  World  as 
Will  and  Idea,”  but  in  two  things  — the  theory  of  will  and 
the  impulse  toward  truth  — he  and  Schopenhauer  were 
ever  as  one.  He  preached  a holy  war  upon  all  those 
influences  which  had  made  the  apostle  of  pessimism,  in 
his  life-time,  an  unheard  outcast.  He  raged  against  the 
narrowness  of  university  schools  of  philosophy  and  de- 
nounced all  governmental  interference  in  speculation  — ■ 
whether  it  were  expressed  crudely,  by  inquisitorial  laws 
and  the  Index , or  softly  and  insidiously,  by  the  bribery  of 
comfortable  berths  and  public  honors. 

“ Experience  teaches  us,”  he  said,  “ that  nothing  stands 
so  much  in  the  way  of  developing  great  philosophers  as 
the  custom  of  supporting  bad  ones  in  state  universities. 
...  It  is  the  popular  theory  that  the  posts  given  to  the 
latter  make  them  ‘ free  ’ to  do  original  work ; as  a matter 
of  fact,  the  effect  is  quite  the  contrary.  . . . No  state 
would  ever  dare  to  patronize  such  men  as  Plato  and 
Schopenhauer.  And  why?  Because  the  state  is  always 


33 


BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 

afraid  of  them.  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  need 
for  a higher  tribunal  outside  the  universities  to  critically 
examine  the  doctrines  they  teach.  As  soon  as  philosophers 
are  willing  to  resign  their  salaries,  they  will  constitute  such 
a tribunal.  Without  pay  and  without  honors,  it  will  be 
able  to  free  itself  from  the  prejudices  of  the  age.  Like 
Schopenhauer,  it  will  be  the  judge  of  the  so-called  culture 
around  it.”  1 

Years  later  Nietzsche  denied  that,  in  this  essay,  he 
committed  himself  irretrievably  to  the  whole  philosophy 
of  Schopenhauer  and  a fair  reading  bears  him  out.  He 
was  not  defending  Schopenhauer’s  doctrine  of  renuncia- 
tion, but  merely  asking  that  he  be  given  a hearing.  He 
was  pleading  the  case  of  foes  as  well  as  of  friends : all  he 
asked  was  that  the  forum  be  opened  to  every  man  who  had 
something  new  to  say. 

Nietzsche  regarded  Schopenhauer  as  a king  among 
philosophers  because  he  shook  himself  entirely  free  of  the 
dominant  thought  of  his  time.  In  an  age  marked,  beyond 
everything,  by  humanity’s  rising  reliance  upon  human 
reason,  he  sought  to  show  that  reason  was  a puny  offshoot 
of  an  irresistible  natural  law  — the  law  of  self-preservation. 
Nietzsche  admired  the  man’s  courage  and  agreed  with 
him  in  his  insistence  that  this  law  was  at  the  bottom  of 
all  sentient  activity,  but  he  was  never  a subscriber  to 
Schopenhauer’s  surrender  and  despair.  From  the  very 
start,  indeed,  he  was  a prophet  of  defiance,  and  herein 
his  divergence  from  Schopenhauer  was  infinite.  As  his 
knowledge  broadened  and  his  scope  widened,  he  expanded 
and  developed  his  philosophy,  and  often  he  found  it 

1 “ Schopenhauer  a/s  Erzieher § 8. 


34 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


necessary  to  modify  it  in  detail.  But  that  he  ever  turned 
upon  himself  in  fundamentals  is  untrue.  Nietzsche  at 
40  and  Nietzsche  at  25  were  essentially  the  same.  The 
germ  of  practically  all  his  writings  lies  in  his  first  book  — 
nay,  it  is  to  be  found  further  back : in  the  wild  speculations 
of  his  youth. 

The  fourth  of  the  “ Unzeitgemasse  Betrachtungen  ” (and 
the  last,  for  the  original  design  of  the  series  was  not  car- 
ried out)  was  “ Richard  Wagner  in  Bayreuth.”  1 This 
was  published  in  1876  and  neither  it  nor  the  general 
subject  of  Nietzsche’s  relations  with  Wagner  need  be 
considered  here.  In  a subsequent  chapter  the  whole 
matter  will  be  discussed.  For  the  present,  it  is  sufficient 
to  say  that  Nietzsche  met  Wagner  through  the  medium 
of  Ritschl’s  wife ; that  they  became  fast  friends ; that 
Nietzsche  hailed  the  composer  as  a hero  sent  to  make  the 
drama  an  epitome  of  the  life  unfettered  and  unbounded, 
of  life  defiant  and  joyful;  that  Wagner,  after  starting 
from  the  Schopenhauer  base,  travelled  toward  St.  Francis 
rather  than  toward  Dionysus,  and  that  Nietzsche,  after 
vain  expostulations,  read  the  author  of  “ Parsifal  ” out 
of  meeting  and  pronounced  him  anathema.  It  was  all  a 
case  of  misunderstanding.  Wagner  was  an  artist,  and  not 
a philosopher.  Right  or  wrong,  Christianity  was  beautiful, 
and  as  a thing  of  beauty  it  called  aloud  to  him.  To  Niet- 
zsche beauty  seemed  a mere  phase  of  truth. 

1 According  to  Nietzsche’s  original  plan  the  series  was  to  have  in- 
cluded pamphlets  on  “ Literature  and  the  Press,”  “ Art  and  Painters,” 
“ The  Higher  Education,”  “ German  and  Counter-German,”  “ War  and 
the  Nation,”  “The  Teacher,”  “Religion,”  “Society  and  Trade,” 
“ Society  and  Natural  Science,”  and  “The  City,”  with  an  epilogue  en- 
titled “The  Way  to  Freedom.'' 


BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 


35 


It  was  during  this  period  of  preliminary  skirmishing 
that  Nietzsche’s  ultimate  philosophy  began  to  formulate 
itself.  He  saw  clearly  that  there  was  something  radically 
wrong  with  the  German  culture  of  the  day  — that  many 
things  esteemed  right  and  holy  were,  in  reality,  unspeak- 
able, and  that  many  things  under  the  ban  of  church  and 
state  were  far  from  wrong  in  themselves.  He  saw,  too, 
that  there  had  grown  up  a false  logic  and  that  its  taint  was 
upon  the  whole  of  contemporary  thought.  Men  main- 
tained propositions  plainly  erroneous  and  excused  them- 
selves by  the  plea  that  ideals  were  greater  than  actualities. 
The  race  was  subscribing  to  one  thing  and  practicing 
another.  Christianity  was  official,  but  not  a single  real 
Christian  was  to  be  found  in  all  Christendom.  Thousands 
bowed  down  to  men  and  ideas  that  they  despised  and 
denounced  things  that  every  sane  man  knew  were  neces- 
sary and  inevitable.  The  result  was  a flavor  of  dishonesty 
and  hypocrisy  in  all  human  affairs.  In  the  abstract  the 
laws  — of  the  church,  the  state  and  society  — were  looked 
upon  as  impeccable,  but  every  man,  in  so  far  as  they 
bore  upon  him  personally,  tried  his  best  to  evade 
them. 

Other  philosophers,  in  Germany  and  elsewhere,  had 
made  the  same  observation  and  there  was  in  progress 
a grand  assault-at-arms  upon  old  ideas.  Huxley  and 
Spencer,  in  England,  were  laboring  hard  in  the  vineyard 
planted  by  Darwin ; Ibsen,  in  Norway,  was  preparing 
for  his  epoch-making  life-work,  and  in  far  America  Andrew 
D.  White  and  others  were  battling  to  free  education  from 
the  bonds  of  theology.  Thus  it  will  be  seen  that,  at  the 
start,  Nietzsche  was  no  more  a pioneer  than  any  one  of 


3^ 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


a dozen  other  men.  Some  of  these  other  men,  indeed, 
were  far  better  equipped  for  the  fray  than  he,  and  their 
services,  for  a long  while,  seemed  a great  deal  more  impor- 
tant. But  it  was  his  good  fortune,  before  his  working  days 
were  over,  to  press  the  conflict  much  further  afield  than 
the  others.  Beginning  where  they  ended,  he  fought  his 
way  into  the  very  citadel  of  the  enemy. 

His  attack  upon  Christianity,  which  is  described  at 
length  later  on,  well  exemplifies  this  uncompromising 
thoroughness.  Nietzsche  saw  that  the  same  plan  would 
have  to  be  pursued  in  examining  all  other  concepts  — 
religious,  political  or  social.  It  would  be  necessary  to 
pass  over  surface  symptoms  and  go  to  the  heart  of  things : 
to  tunnel  down  deep  into  ideas ; to  trace  out  their  history 
and  seek  out  their  origins.  There  were  no  willing  hands 
to  help  him  in  this : it  was,  in  a sense,  a work  new  to  the 
world.  In  consequence  Nietzsche  perceived  that  he  would 
have  to  go  slowly  and  that  it  would  be  needful  to  make 
every  step  plain.  It  was  out  of  the  question  to  expect 
encouragement : if  the  task  attracted  notice  at  all,  this 
notice  would  probably  take  the  form  of  blundering  opposi- 
tion. But  Nietzsche  began  his  clearing  and  his  road 
cutting  with  a light  heart.  The  men  of  his  day  might 
call  him  accursed,  but  in  time  his  honesty  would  shame 
all  denial.  This  was  his  attitude  always : he  felt  that 
neglect  and  opprobrium  were  all  in  his  day’s  work  and  he 
used  to  say  that  if  ever  the  generality  of  men  endorsed 
any  idea  that  he  had  advanced  he  would  be  convinced  at 
once  that  he  had  made  an  error. 

In  his  preliminary  path-finding  Nietzsche  concerned 
himself  much  with  the  history  of  specific  ideas.  He 


BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 


37 


showed  how  the  thing  which  was  a sin  in  one  age  became 
the  virtue  of  the  next.  He  attacked  hope,  faith  and 
charity  in  this  way,  and  he  made  excursions  into  nearly 
every  field  of  human  thought  — from  art  to  primary 
education.  All  of  this  occupied  the  first  half  of  the  70’s. 
Nietzsche  was  in  indifferent  health  and  his  labors  tired 
him  so  greatly  that  he  thought  more  than  once  of  giving 
up  his  post  at  Basel,  with  its  dull  round  of  lecturing  and 
quizzing.  But  his  private  means  at  this  time  were  not 
great  enough  to  enable  him  to  surrender  his  salary  and  so 
he  had  to  hold  on.  He  thought,  too,  of  going  to  Vienna  to 
study  the  natural  sciences  so  that  he  might  attain  the 
wide  and  certain  knowledge  possessed  by  Spencer,  but 
the  same  considerations  forced  him  to  abandon  the 
plan.  He  spent  his  winters  teaching  and  investigating 
and  his  summers  at  various  watering-places  — from 
Tribschen,  in  Switzerland,  where  the  Wagners  were  his 
hosts,  to  Sorrento,  in  Italy. 

At  Sorrento  he  happened  to  take  lodgings  in  a house 
which  also  sheltered  Dr.  Paul  Ree,  the  author  of  “ Psy- 
chological Observations,”  “ The  Origin  of  Moral  Feel- 
ings,” and  other  metaphysical  works.  That  R£e  gave 
him  great  assistance  he  acknowledged  himself  in  later 
years,  but  that  his  ideas  were,  in  any  sense,  due  to  this 
chance  meeting  (as  Max  Nordau  would  have  us  believe) 
is  out  of  the  question,  for,  as  we  have  seen,  they  were 
already  pretty  clear  in  his  mind  a long  while  before.  But 
R£e  widened  his  outlook  a great  deal,  it  is  evident,  and 
undoubtedly  made  him  acquainted  with  the  English 
naturalists  who  had  sprung  up  as  spores  of  Darwin,  and 
with  a number  of  great  Frenchmen  — Montaigne,  La- 


3» 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


rochefoucauld,  La  Bruy^re,  Fontenelle,  Vauvenargues  and 
Chamfort. 

Nietzsche  had  been  setting  down  his  thoughts  and 
conclusions  in  the  form  of  brief  memoranda  and  as  he 
grew  better  acquainted  with  the  French  philosophers,  many 
of  whom  published  their  works  as  collections  of  aphorisms, 
he  decided  to  employ  that  form  himself.  Thus  he  began  to 
arrange  the  notes  which  were  to  be  given  to  the  world  as 
“ Menschliches  allzu  Menschliches  ” (“  Human,  All-too 
Human  ”).  In  1876  he  got  leave  from  Basel  and  gave  his 
whole  time  to  the  work.  During  the  winter  of  1876-7, 
with  the  aid  of  a disciple  named  Bernhard  Cron  (better 
known  as  Peter  Gast)  he  prepared  the  first  volume  for 
the  press.  Nietzsche  was  well  aware  that  it  would  make 
a sensation  and  while  it  was  being  set  up  his  courage 
apparently  forsook  him  and  he  suggested  to  his  publisher 
that  it  be  sent  forth  anonymously.  But  the  latter  would 
not  hear  of  it  and  so  the  first  part  left  the  press  in  1878. 

As  the  author  had  expected,  the  book  provoked  a fine 
frenzy  of  horror  among  the  pious.  The  first  title  chosen 
for  it,  “Die  Pjlugschar  ” (“The  Plowshare”),  and  the 
one  finally  selected,  “ Human,  All-too  Human,”  indicate 
that  it  was  an  attempt  to  examine  the  underside  of  human 
ideas.  In  it  Nietzsche  challenged  the  whole  of  current 
morality.  He  showed  that  moral  ideas  were  not  divine,  but 
human,  and  that,  like  all  things  human,  they  were  subject 
to  change.  He  showed  that  good  and  evil  were  but  relative 
terms,  and  that  it  was  impossible  to  say,  finally  and  abso- 
lutely, that  a certain  action  was  right  and  another  wrong. 
He  applied  the  acid  of  critical  analysis  to  a hundred  and 
one  specific  ideas,  and  his  general  conclusion,  to  put  it 


BLAZING  A NEW  PATH 


39 


briefly,  was  that  no  human  being  had  a right,  in  any 
way  or  form,  to  judge  or  direct  the  actions  of  any  other 
being.  Herein  we  have,  in  a few  words,  that  gospel  of 
individualism  which  all  our  sages  preach  today.1 

Nietzsche  sent  a copy  of  the  book  to  Wagner  and  the 
great  composer  was  so  appalled  that  he  was  speechless. 
Even  the  author’s  devoted  sister,  who  worshipped  him 
as  an  intellectual  god,  was  unable  to  follow  him.  Ger- 
many, in  general,  pronounced  the  work  a conglomeration 
of  crazy  fantasies  and  wild  absurdities  • — and  Nietzsche 
smiled  with  satisfaction.  In  1879  he  published  the  second 
volume,  to  which  he  gave  the  sub-title  of  “ Vermischte 
Meinungen  und  Spruche  ” (“  Miscellaneous  Opinions  and 
Aphorisms  ”)  and  shortly  thereafter  he  finally  resigned 
his  chair  at  Basel.  The  third  part  of  the  book  appeared 
in  1880  as  “ Der  Wanderer  und  sein  Schatten  ” (“  The 
Wanderer  and  His  Shadow  ”).  The  three  volumes  were 
published  as  two  in  1886  as  “ Mens  chi  iches  allzu  Mensch- 
liches,”  with  the  explanatory  sub-title,  “ Ein  Buck  fur 
Freie  Geister ” (“A  Book  for  Free  Spirits”). 

1 It  must  be  remembered,  in  considering  all  of  Nietzsche’s  writings, 
that  when  he  spoke  of  a human  being,  he  meant  a being  of  the  higher 
sort  — i.  e.  one  capable  of  clear  reasoning.  He  regarded  the  drudge 
class,  which  is  obviously  unable  to  think  for  itself,  as  unworthy  of  con- 
sideration. Its  highest  mission,  he  believed,  was  to  serve  and  obey  the 
master  class.  But  he  held  that  there  should  be  no  artificial  barriers 
to  the  rise  of  an  individual  born  to  the  drudge  class  who  showed  an 
accidental  capacity  for  independent  reasoning.  Such  an  individual,  he 
believed,  should  be  admitted,  ipso  facto , to  the  master  class.  Naturally 
enough,  he  held  to  the  converse  too.  Vide  the  chapter  on  ^Civilization.” 


IV 

THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  SUPERMAN 

Nietzsche  spent  the  winter  of  1879-80  at  Naumburg, 
his  old  home.  During  the  ensuing  year  he  was  very  ill, 
indeed,  and  for  awhile  he  believed  that  he  had  but  a short 
while  to  live.  Like  all  such  invalids  he  devoted  a great 
deal  of  time  to  observing  and  discussing  his  condition. 
He  became,  indeed,  a hypochondriac  of  the  first  water 
and  began  to  take  a sort  of  melancholy  pleasure  in  his 
infirmities.  He  sought  relief  at  all  the  baths  and  cures 
of  Europe : he  took  hot  baths,  cold  baths,  salt-water  baths 
and  mud  baths.  Every  new  form  of  pseudo-therapy 
found  him  in  its  freshman  class.  To  owners  of  sanitoria 
and  to  inventors  of  novel  styles  of  massage,  irrigation, 
sweating  and  feeding  he  was  a joy  unlimited.  But  he 
grew  worse  instead  of  better. 

After  1880,  his  life  was  a wandering  one.  His  sister, 
after  her  marriage,  went  to  Paraguay  for  a while,  and 
during  her  absence  Nietzsche  made  his  progress  from  the 
mountains  to  the  sea,  and  then  back  to  the  mountains 
again.  He  gave  up  his  professorship  that  he  might  spend 
his  winters  in  Italy  and  his  summers  in  the  Engadine. 
In  the  face  of  all  this  suffering  and  travelling  about,  close 
application,  of  course,  was  out  of  the  question.  So  he 

40 


THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  SUPERMAN  41 


contented  himself  with  working  whenever  and  however 
his  headaches,  his  doctors  and  the  railway  time-tables 
would  permit  — on  hotel  verandas,  in  cure-houses  and 
in  the  woods.  He  would  take  long,  solitary  walks  and 
struggle  with  his  problems  by  the  way.  He  swallowed 
more  and  more  pills;  he  imbibed  mineral  waters  by  the 
gallon;  he  grew  more  and  more  moody  and  ungenial. 
One  of  his  favorite  haunts,  in  the  winter  time,  was  a 
verdant  little  neck  of  land  that  jutted  out  into  Lake 
Maggiore.  There  he  could  think  and  dream  undisturbed. 
One  day,  when  he  found  that  some  one  had  placed  a rustic 
bench  on  the  diminutive  peninsula,  that  passersby  might 
rest,  he  was  greatly  incensed. 

Nietzsche  would  make  brief  notes  of  his  thoughts  during 
his  daylight  rambles,  and  in  the  evenings  would  polish  and 
expand  them.  As  we  have  seen,  his  early  books  were  sent 
to  the  printer  as  mere  collections  of  aphorisms,  without 
effort  at  continuity.  Sometimes  a dozen  subjects  are 
considered  in  two  pages,  and  then  again,  there  is  occasion- 
ally a little  essay  of  three  or  four  pages.  Nietzsche  chose 
this  form  because  it  had  been  used  by  the  French  philoso- 
phers he  admired,  and  because  it  well  suited  the  methods 
of  work  that  a pain-racked  frame  imposed  upon  him. 

He  was  ever  in  great  fear  that  some  of  his  precious  ideas 
would  be  lost  to  posterity  — that  death,  the  ever-threaten- 
ing, would  rob  him  of  his  rightful  immortality  and  the 
world  of  his  stupendous  wisdom  • — - and  so  he  made  efforts, 
several  times,  to  engage  an  amanuensis  capable  of  jotting 
down,  after  the  fashion  of  Johnson’s  Boswell,  the  chance 
phrases  that  fell  from  his  lips.  His  sister  was  too  busy 
to  undertake  the  task;  whenever  she  was  with  him  her 


42 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


whole  time  was  employed  in  guarding  him  from  lion- 
hunters,  scrutinizing  his  daily  fare  and  deftly  inveigling 
him  into  answering  his  letters,  brushing  his  clothes  and 
getting  his  hair  cut.  Finally,  Paul  Ree  and  another 
friend,  Fraulein  von  Meysenbug,  brought  to  his  notice  a 
young  Russian  woman,  Mile.  Lou  Salome,  who  professed 
vast  interest  in  his  work  and  offered  to  help  him.  But 
this  arrangement  quickly  ended  in  disaster,  for  Niet- 
zsche fell  in  love  with  the  girl  — she  was  only  20  — and 
pursued  her  over  half  of  Europe  when  she  fled.  To  add 
to  the  humors  of  the  situation  Ree  fell  in  love  with  her 
too,  and  the  two  friends  thus  became  foes  and  there 
was  even  some  talk  of  a duel.  Mile.  Salome,  however, 
went  to  Ree,  and  with  his  aid  she  later  wrote  a book 
about  Nietzsche."  Frau  Forster-Nietzsche  sneers  at 
that  book,  but  the  fact  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  she 
was  very  jealous  of  Mile.  Salome,  and  gave  constant 
proof  of  it  by  unfriendly  word  and  act.  In  the  end, 
the  latter  married  one  Prof.  Andreas  and  settled  down 
in  Gottingen. 

Early  in  1881  Nietzsche  published  “ Morgenrote  ” 
(“  The  Dawn  of  Day  ”).  It  was  begun  at  Venice  in  1880 
and  continued  at  Marienbad,  Lago  Maggiore  and  Genoa. 
It  was,  in  a broad  way,  a continuation  of  “ M enschliches 
allzu  M enschliches."  It  dealt  with  an  infinite  variety  of 
subjects,  from  matrimony  to  Christianity,  and  from 
education  to  German  patriotism.  To  all  the  test  of 
fundamental  truth  was  applied : of  everything  Nietzsche 
asked,  not,  Is  it  respectable  or  lawful  ? but,  Is  it  essentially 
true  ? These  early  works,  at  best,  were  mere  note-books. 

1 “ Friedrich  Nietzsche  in  seinen  Werken;  ” Vienna,  1894. 


THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  SUPERMAN  43 


Nietzsche  saw  that  the  ground  would  have  to  be  plowed, 
that  people  would  have  to  grow  accustomed  to  the  idea 
of  questioning  high  and  holy  things,  before  a new  system 
of  philosophy  would  be  understandable  or  possible.  In 
“ M enschliches  allzu  M enschliches  ” and  in  “ Morgenrote  ” 
he  undertook  this  preparatory  cultivation. 

The  book  which  followed,  “ Die  frohliche  Wissen- 
schajt  ” (“  The  Joyful  Science  ”)  continued  the  same  task. 
The  first  edition  contained  four  parts  and  was  published 
in  1882.  In  1887  a fifth  part  was  added.  Nietzsche 
had  now  completed  his  plowing  and  was  ready  to  sow  his 
crop.  He  had  demonstrated,  by  practical  examples,  that 
moral  ideas  were  vulnerable,  and  that  the  Ten  Command- 
ments might  be  debated.  Going  further,  he  had  adduced 
excellent  historical  evidence  against  the  absolute  truth 
of  various  current  conceptions  of  right  and  wrong,  and 
had  traced  a number  of  moral  ideas  back  to  decidedly 
lowly  sources.  His  work  so  far  had  been  entirely  destruc- 
tive and  he  had  scarcely  ventured  to  hint  at  his  plans  for 
a reconstruction  of  the  scheme  of  things.  As  he  himself 
says,  he  spent  the  four  years  between  1878  and  1882  in 
preparing  the  way  for  his  later  work. 

“ I descended,”  he  says,  “ into  the  lowest  depths,  I 
searched  to  the  bottom,  I examined  and  pried  into  an  old 
faith  on  which,  for  thousands  of  years,  philosophers  had 
built  as  upon  a secure  foundation.  The  old  structures  came 
tumbling  down  about  me.  I undermined  our  old  faith  in 
morals.”  1 

This  labor  accomplished,  Nietzsche  was  ready  to  set 
forth  his  own  notion  of  the  end  and  aim  of  existence.  He 

1 Preface  to  “ Morgenrote § 2;  autumn,  1886. 


44 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


had  shown  that  the  old  morality  was  like  an  apple  rotten 
at  the  core  — that  the  Christian  ideal  of  humility  made 
mankind  weak  and  miserable;  that  many  institutions 
regarded  with  superstitious  reverence,  as  the  direct  result 
of  commands  from  the  creator  (such,  for  instance,  as  the 
family,  the  church  and  the  state),  were  mere  products 
of  man’s  “ all-too-human  ” cupidity,  cowardice,  stupidity 
and  yearning  for  ease.  He  had  turned  the  searchlight  of 
truth  upon  patriotism,  charity  and  self-sacrifice.  He 
had  shown  that  many  things  held  to  be  utterly  and  un- 
questionably good  or  bad  by  modem  civilization  were 
once  given  quite  different  values  — that  the  ancient  Greeks 
considered  hope  a sign  of  weakness,  and  mercy  the  attribute 
of  a fool,  and  that  the  Jews,  in  their  royal  days,  looked 
upon  wrath,  not  as  a sin,  but  as  a virtue  — and  in  general 
he  had  demonstrated,  by  countless  instances  and  argu- 
ments, that  all  notions  of  good  and  evil  were  mutable  and 
that  no  man  could  ever  say,  with  utter  certainty,  that  one 
thing  was  right  and  another  wrong. 

The  ground  was  now  cleared  for  the  work  of  recon- 
struction and  the  first  structure  that  Nietzsche  reared 
was  “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra  ” (“  Thus  Spake  Zo- 
roaster ”).  This  book,  to  which  he  gave  the  sub-title  of 
“ Ein  Buck  }iir  Alle  und  Keinen  ” (“  A book  for  all  and 
none  ”),  took  the  form  of  a fantastic,  half-poetical  half- 
philosophical  rhapsody.  Nietzsche  had  been  delving 
into  oriental  mysticism  and  from  the  law-giver  of  the 
ancient  Persians  he  borrowed  the  name  of  his  hero  — ■ 
Zoroaster.  But  there  was  no  further  resemblance  between 
the  two,  and  no  likeness  whatever  between  Nietzsche’s 
philosophy  and  that  of  the  Persians. 


THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  SUPERMAN  45 

The  Zoroaster  of  the  book  is  a sage  who  lives  remote 
from  mankind,  and  with  no  attendants  but  a snake  and 
an  eagle.  The  book  is  in  four  parts  and  all  are  made  up  of 
discourses  by  Zoroaster.  These  discourses  are  delivered 
to  various  audiences  during  the  prophet’s  occasional 
wanderings  and  at  the  conferences  he  holds  with  various 
disciples  in  the  cave  that  he  calls  home.  They  are  decidedly 
oriental  in  form  and  recall  the  manner  and  phraseology 
of  the  biblical  rhapsodists.  Toward  the  end  Nietzsche 
throws  all  restraint  to  the  winds  and  indulges  to  his  heart’s 
content  in  the  rare  and  exhilarating  sport  of  blasphemy. 
There  is  a sort  of  parody  of  the  last  supper  and  Zoroaster’s 
backsliding  disciples  engage  in  the  grotesque  and  indecent 
worship  of  a jackass.  Wagner  and  other  enemies  of  the 
author  appear,  thinly  veiled,  as  ridiculous  buffoons. 

In  his  discourses  Zoroaster  voices  the  Nietzschean  idea 
of  the  superman  — the  idea  that  has  come  to  be  associated 
with  Nietzsche  more  than  any  other.  Later  on,  it  will  be 
set  forth  in  detail.  For  the  present,  suffice  it  to  say  that 
it  is  the  natural  child  of  the  notions  put  forward  in  Niet- 
zsche’s first  book,  “ The  Birth  of  Tragedy,”  and  that  it 
binds  his  entire  life  work  together  into  one  consistent, 
harmonious  whole.  The  first  part  of  “ Also  sprach 
Zarathustra  ” was  published  in  1883,  the  second  part  fol- 
lowing in  the  same  year,  and  the  third  part  was  printed 
in  1884.  The  last  part  was  privately  circulated  among 
the  author’s  friends  in  1885,  but  was  not  given  to  the  pub- 
lic until  1892,  when  the  entire  work  was  printed  in  one 
volume.  As  showing  Nietzsche’s  wandering  life,  it  may 
be  recorded  that  the  book  was  conceived  in  the  Engadine 
and  written  in  Genoa,  Sils  Maria,  Nice  and  Mentone. 


46 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


u Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Bose  ” (“  Beyond  Good  and 
Evil  ”)  appeared  in  1886.  In  this  book  Nietzsche  elabo- 
rated and  systematized  his  criticism  of  morals,  and  under- 
took to  show  why  he  considered  modern  civilization  de- 
grading. Here  he  finally  formulated  his  definitions  of 
master-morality  and  slave-morality,  and  showed  how 
Christianity  was  necessarily  the  idea  of  a race  oppressed 
and  helpless,  and  eager  to  escape  the  lash  of  its  masters. 

“ Zur  Genealogie  der  Moral  ” (“  The  Genealogy  of 
Morals  ”),  which  appeared  in  1887,  developed  these  prop- 
ositions still  further.  In  it  there  was  also  a partial  return 
to  Nietzsche’s  earlier  manner,  with  its  merciless  analysis 
of  moral  concepts.  In  1888  Nietzsche  published  a most 
vitriolic  attack  upon  Wagner,  under  the  title  of  “ Der 
Fall  Wagner  ” (“  The  Case  of  Wagner  ”),  the  burden  of 
which  was  the  author’s  discovery  that  the  composer, 
starting,  with  him,  from  Schopenhauer’s  premises,  had 
ended,  not  with  the  superman,  but  with  the  Man  on  the 
cross.  “ Gotzendammerung  ” (“  The  Twilight  of  the 
Idols  ”)  a sort  of  parody  of  Wagner’s  “ G otter d'ammer- 
ung  ” (“'  The  Twilight  of  the  Gods  ”)  followed  in  1889. 
“ Nietzsche  contra  Wagner  ” (“  Nietzsche  versus  Wag- 
ner ”)  was  printed  the  same  year.  It  was  made  up  of 
extracts  from  the  philosopher’s  early  works,  and  was 
designed  to  prove  that,  contrary  to  the  allegations  of  his 
enemies,  he  had  not  veered  completely  about  in  his  atti- 
tude toward  Wagner. 

Meanwhile,  despite  the  fact  that  his  health  was  fast 
declining  and  he  was  approaching  the  verge  of  insanity, 
Nietzsche  made  plans  for  a great  four  volume  work  that 
was  to  sum  up  his  philosophy  and  stand  forever  as  his 


THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  SUPERMAN  47 


magnum  opus.  The  four  volumes,  as  he  planned  them, 
were  to  bear  the  following  titles: 

1.  “ Der  Antichrist:  Versuch  einer  Kritik  des  Christ- 

enthums  ” (“  The  Anti-Christ : an  Attempt  at  a 
Criticism  of  Christianity  ”). 

2.  “ Der  jreie  Geist:  Kritik  der  Philosophic  als  einer 

nihilistichen  B ewe gun g ” (“  The  Free  Spirit : a 
Criticism  of  Philosophy  as  a Nihilistic  Move- 
ment ”). 

3.  “ Der  Immoralist:  Kritik  der  verhdngnissvollsten 

Art  von  Unwissenheit,  der  Moral  ” (“  The  Im- 
moralist : a Criticism  of  That  Fatal  Species  of 
Ignorance,  Morality  ”). 

4.  “ Dionysus,  Philosophic  der  ewigen  Wiederkunjt  ” 

(“  Dionysus,  the  Philosophy  of  Eternal  Recur- 
rence ”). 

This  work  was  to  be  published  under  the  general  title 
of  “ Der  Wille  zur  Macht:  Versuch  einer  Umwerthung 
aller  Werthe ” (“The  Will  to  Power:  an  Attempt  at  a 
Transvaluation  of  all  Values  ”),  but  Nietzsche  got  no 
further  than  the  first  book,  “ Der  Antichrist ,”  and  a 
mass  of  rough  notes  for  the  others.  “ Der  Antichrist ,” 
probably  the  most  brilliant  piece  of  writing  that  Ger- 
many had  seen  in  half  a century,  was  written  at  great 
speed  between  September  3rd  and  September  30th,  1888, 
but  it  was  not  published  until  1895,  six  years  after  the 
philosopher  had  laid  down  his  work  forever. 

During  that  same  year  C.  G.  Naumann,  the  Leipsic 
publisher,  began  the  issue  of  a definite  edition  of  all  his 
writings,  in  fifteen  volumes,  under  the  editorial  direc- 
tion of  Frau  Forster-Nietzsche,  Dr.  Fritz  Koegel,  Peter 


48 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


Gast  and  E.  von  der  Hellen.  In  this  edition  his  notes 
for  “ Der  Wille  zur  Macht  ” and  his  early  philological 
essays  were  included.  The  notes  are  of  great  interest 
to  the  serious  student  of  Nietzsche,  for  they  show  how 
some  of  his  ideas  changed  with  the  years  and  point  out 
the  probable  structure  of  his  final  system,  but  the  gen- 
eral reader  will  find  them  chaotic,  and  often  incompre- 
hensible. In  October,  1888,  but  three  months  before 
his  breakdown,  he  began  a critical  autobiography  with 
the  title  of  “ Ecce  Homo,”  and  it  was  completed  in  three 
weeks.  It  is  an  extremely  frank  and  entertaining  book, 
with  such  chapter  headings  as  “ Why  I am  so  Wise,” 
“ Why  I Write  Such  Excellent  Books  ” and  “ Why  I am 
a Fatality.”  In  it  Nietzsche  sets  forth  his  private  con- 
victions regarding  a great  many  things,  from  cooking  to 
climates,  and  discusses  each  of  his  books  in  detail. 
“ Ecce  Homo  ” was  not  printed  until  1908,  when  it  ap- 
peared at  Leipsic  in  a limited  edition  of  1250  copies. 

In  January,  1889,  at  Turin,  where  he  was  living  alone 
in  very  humble  quarters,  Nietzsche  suddenly  became 
hopelessly  insane.  His  friends  got  news  of  it  from  his 
own  hand.  “ I am  Ferdinand  de  Lesseps,”  he  wrote  to 
Prof.  Burckhardt  of  Basel.  To  Cosima  Wagner:  “Ari- 
adne, I love  you!  ” To  Georg  Brandes,  the  Danish 
critic,  he  sent  a telegram  signed  “ The  Crucified.” 
Franz  Overbeck,  an  old  Basel  friend,  at  once  set  out  for 
Turin,  and  there  he  found  Nietzsche  thumping  the 
piano  with  his  elbows  and  singing  wild  songs.  Overbeck 
brought  him  back  to  Basel  and  he  was  confined  in  a 
private  asylum,  where  his  general  health  greatly  im- 
proved and  hopes  were  entertained  of  his  recovery.  But 


THE  PROPHET  OF  THE  SUPERMAN  49 


he  never  got  well  enough  to  be  left  alone,  and  so  his  old 
mother,  with  whom  he  had  been  on  bad  terms  for  years, 
took  him  back  to  Naumburg.  When,  in  1893,  sister 
Elizabeth  returned  from  Paraguay,  where  her  husband 
had  died,  he  was  well  enough  to  meet  her  at  the  railroad 
station.  Four  years  later,  when  their  mother  died, 
Elizabeth  removed  him  to  Weimar,  where  she  bought  a 
villa  called  “ Silberblick  ” (Silver  View)  in  the  suburbs. 
This  villa  had  a garden  overlooking  the  hills  and  the 
lazy  river  Urn,  and  a wide,  sheltered  veranda  for  the 
invalid’s  couch.  There  he  would  sit  day  after  day,  re- 
ceiving old  friends  but  saying  little.  His  mind  never 
became  clear  enough  for  him  to  resume  work,  or  even  to 
read.  He  had  to  grope  for  words,  slowly  and  painfully, 
and  he  retained  only  a cloudy  memory  of  his  own  books. 
His  chief  delight  was  in  music  and  he  was  always  glad 
when  someone  came  who  could  play  the  piano  for  him. 

There  is  something  poignantly  pathetic  in  the  picture 
of  this  valiant  fighter  — this  arrogant  ja-sager  — this 
foe  of  men,  gods  and  devils  — - being  nursed  and  coddled 
like  a little  child.  His  old  fierce  pride  and  courage  dis- 
appeared and  he  became  docile  and  gentle.  “You  and 
I,  my  sister  — we  are  happy!  ” he  would  say,  and  then 
his  hand  would  slip  out  from  his  coverings  and  clasp  that 
of  the  tender  and  faithful  Lisbeth.  Once  she  mentioned 
Wagner  to  him.  “ Den  habe  ich  sehr  geliebt!  ” he  said. 
All  his  old  fighting  spirit  was  gone.  He  remembered 
only  the  glad  days  and  the  dreams  of  his  youth. 

Nietzsche  died  at  Weimar  on  August  25,  1900,  the 
immediate  cause  of  death  being  pneumonia.  His  ashes 
are  buried  in  the  little  village  of  Rocken,  his  birthplace. 


V 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THE  MAN 

“ My  brother,”  says  Frau  Forster-Nietzsche,  in  her 
biography,  “ was  stockily  and  broadly  built  and  was 
anything  but  thin.  He  had  a rather  dark,  healthy,  ruddy 
complexion.  In  all  things  he  was  tidy  and  orderly,  in 
speech  he  was  soft-spoken,  and  in  general,  he  was  inclined 
to  be  serene  under  all  circumstances.  All  in  all,  he  was 
the  very  antithesis  of  a nervous  man. 

“ In  the  fall  of  1888,  he  said  of  himself,  in  a reminiscent 
memorandum : ‘ My  blood  moves  slowly.  A doctor  who 
treated  me  a long  while  for  what  was  at  first  diagnosed  as 
a nervous  affection  said  : “ No,  your  trouble  cannot  be  in 
your  nerves.  I myself  am  much  more  nervous  than 
you.”  ’ . . . 

“ My  brother,  both  before  and  after  his  long  illness 
seized  him,  was  a believer  in  natural  methods  of  healing. 
He  took  cold  baths,  rubbed  down  every  morning  and  was 
quite  faithful  in  continuing  fight,  bed-room  gymnas- 
tics.” 

At  one  time,  she  says,  Nietzsche  became  a violent 
vegetarian  and  afflicted  his  friends  with  the  ancient  vege- 
tarian horror  of  making  a sarcophagus  of  one’s  stomach. 
It  seems  surprising  that  a man  so  quick  to  perceive  errors, 

5° 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THE  MAN  51 

saw  none  in  the  silly  argument  that,  because  an  ape’s 
organs  are  designed  for  a vegetarian  diet,  a man’s  are  so 
planned  also.  An  acquaintance  with  elementary  anatomy 
and  physiology  would  have  shown  him  the  absurdity  of 
this,  but  apparently  he  knew  little  about  the  human  body, 
despite  his  uncanny  skill  at  unearthing  the  secrets  of  the 
human  mind.  Nietzsche  had  read  Emerson  in  his  youth, 
and  those  Emersonian  seeds  which  have  come  to  full  flower 
in  the  United  States  as  the  so-called  New  Thought  move- 
ment — with  Christian  Science,  osteopathy,  mental  telep- 
athy, occultism,  pseudo-psychology  and  that  grand  lodge 
of  credulous  comiques,  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
as  its  final  blossoms  — all  of  this  probably  made  its  mark 
on  the  philosopher  of  the  superman,  too. 

Frau  Forster-Nietzsche,  in  her  biography,  seeks  to 
prove  the  impossible  thesis  that  her  brother,  despite  his 
constant  illness,  was  ever  well-balanced  in  mind.  It  is  but 
fair  to  charge  that  her  own  evidence  is  against  her.  From 
his  youth  onward,  Nietzsche  was  undoubtedly  a neuras- 
thenic, and  after  the  Franco- Prussian  war  he  was  a con- 
stant sufferer  from  all  sorts  of  terrible  ills  — some  imagi- 
nary, no  doubt,  but  others  real  enough.  In  many  ways, 
his  own  account  of  his  symptoms  recalls  vividly  the  long 
catalogue  of  aches  and  pains  given  by  Herbert  Spencer  in 
his  autobiography.  Spencer  had  queer  pains  in  his  head 
and  so  did  Nietzsche.  Spencer  roved  about  all  his  life 
in  search  of  health  and  so  did  Nietzsche.  Spencer’s 
working  hours  were  limited  and  so  were  Nietzsche’s.  The 
latter  tells  us  himself  that,  in  a single  year,  1878,  he  was 
disabled  118  days  by  headaches  and  pains  in  the  eyes. 

Dr.  Gould,  the  prophet  of  eye-strain,  would  have  us  be- 


52 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


lieve  that  both  of  these  great  philosophers  suffered  be- 
cause they  had  read  too  much  during  adolescence.  It 
is  more  likely,  however,  that  each  was  the  victim  of 
some  definite  organic  malady,  and  perhaps  of  more  than 
one.  In  Nietzsche’s  case  things  were  constantly  made 
worse  by  his  fondness  for  self-medication,  that  vice  of 
fools.  Preparatory  to  his  service  as  a hospital  steward 
in  1870  he  had  attended  a brief  course  of  first-aid  lec- 
tures at  the  military  hospital  at  Erlangen,  and  there- 
after he  regarded  himself  as  a finished  pathologist  and 
was  forever  taking  his  own  doses.  The  amount  of  medi- 
cine he  thus  swallowed  was  truly  appalling,  and  the 
only  way  he  could  break  his  appetite  for  one  drug  was 
by  acquiring  an  appetite  for  another.  Chloral,  however, 
was  his  favorite,  and  toward  the  end  he  took  it  daily 
and  in  staggering  quantities. 

Meanwhile,  his  mental  disturbances  grew  more  and 
more  visible.  At  times  he  would  be  highly  excited  and 
exalted,  denouncing  his  foes,  and  proclaiming  his  own 
genius.  This  was  his  state  when  his  friends  were  finally 
forced  to  put  him  under  restraint.  At  other  times  he 
would  show  symptoms  of  melancholia  — a feeling  of 
isolation  and  friendlessness,  a great  sadness,  a foreboding 
of  death.  The  hostility  with  which  his  books  were 
received  gave  sharpness  and  plausibility  to  this  mood, 
and  it  pursued  him  through  many  a despairing  day. 

“ An  animal,  when  it  is  sick,”  he  wrote  to  Baron  von 
Seydlitz,  in  1888,  “ slinks  away  to  some  dark  cavern,  and 
so,  too,  does  the  bete  philosophe.  I am  alone  — absurdly 
alone  — and  in  my  unflinching  and  toilsome  struggle 
against  all  that  men  have  hitherto  held  sacred  and  ven- 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THE  MAN  53 

erable,  I have  become  a sort  of  dark  cavern  myself  — 
something  hidden  and  mysterious,  which  is  not  to  be 
explored.  ...”  But  the  mood  vanished  as  the  words 
were  penned,  and  the  defiant  dionysian  roared  his  chal- 
lenge at  his  foes.  “ It  is  not  impossible,”  he  said,  “ that 
I am  the  greatest  philosopher  of  the  century  — perhaps 
even  more  than  that ! I may  be  the  decisive  and  fateful 
link  between  two  thousand  centuries  ! ” 1 

Max  Nordau  2 says  that  Nietzsche  was  crazy  from  birth, 
but  the  facts  do  not  bear  him  out.  It  is  much  more  reason- 
able to  hold  that  the  philosopher  came  into  the  world  a 
sound  and  healthy  animal,  and  that  it  remained  for  over- 
study in  his  youth,  over- work  and  over  drugging  later  on, 
exposure  on  the  battle  field,  functional  disorders  and 
constant  and  violent  strife  to  undermine  and  eventually 
overthrow  his  intellect. 

But  if  we  admit  the  indisputable  fact  that  Nietzsche 
died  a madman  and  the  equally  indisputable  fact  that  his 
insanity  was  not  sudden,  but  progressive,  we  by  no  means 
read  him  out  of  court  as  a thinker.  A man’s  reasoning 
is  to  be  judged,  not  by  his  physical  condition,  but  by  its 
own  ingenuity  and  accuracy.  If  a raving  maniac  says 
that  twice  two  make  four,  it  is  just  as  true  as  it  would  be 
if  Pope  Pius  X or  any  other  undoubtedly  sane  man  were 
to  maintain  it.  Judged  in  this  way  Nietzsche’s  philosophy 
is  very  far  from  insane.  Later  on  we  shall  consider  it  as 
a workable  system,  and  point  out  its  apparent  truths  and 
apparent  errors,  but  in  no  place  (saving,  perhaps,  one) 

1 Thomas  Common : “ Nietzsche  as  Critic,  Philosopher,  Poet  and 
Prophet;”  London,  1901,  p.  54. 

•“Degeneration;”  Eng.  tr. : New  York,  1895;  PP-  415-472. 


54 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


is  his  argument  to  be  dismissed  as  the  phantasm  of  a 
lunatic. 

Nietzsche’s  sister  says  that,  in  the  practical  affairs  of 
life,  the  philosopher  was  absurdly  impractical.  He  cared 
nothing  for  money  and  during  the  better  part  of  his  life 
had  little  need  to  do  so.  His  mother,  for  a country  pastor’s 
widow,  was  well-to-do,  and  when  he  was  twenty-five 
his  professorship  at  Basel  brought  him  3,000  francs  a 
year.  At  Basel,  in  the  late  sixties,  3,000  francs  was  the 
income  of  an  independent,  not  to  say  opulent  man. 
Nietzsche  was  a bachelor  and  lived  very  simply.  It  was 
only  upon  books  and  music  and  travel  that  he  was  ex- 
travagant. 

After  two  years’  service  at  Basel,  the  university  author- 
ities raised  his  wage  to  4,000  francs,  and  in  1879,  when 
ill  health  forced  film  to  resign,  they  gave  him  a pension 
of  3,000  francs  a year.  Besides  that,  he  inherited  30,000 
marks  from  one  of  his  aunts,  and  so,  altogether,  he  had  an 
income  of  $900  or  $1,000  a year  — the  sum  which  Herbert 
Spencer  regarded,  all  his  life,  as  an  insurance  of  perfect 
tranquillity  and  happiness. 

Nietzsche’s  passion  and  dissipation,  throughout  his  life, 
was  music.  In  all  his  books  musical  terms  and  figures 
of  speech  are  constantly  encountered.  He  played  the 
piano  very  well,  indeed,  and  was  especially  fond  of  per- 
forming transcriptions  of  the  Wagner  opera  scores.  “ My 
three  solaces,”  he  wrote  home  from  Leipsic,  “ are  Schopen- 
hauer’s philosophy,  Schumann’s  music  and  solitary  walks.” 
In  his  late  youth,  Wagner  engrossed  him,  but  his  sympa- 
thies were  broad  enough  to  include  Bach,  Schubert  and 
Mendelssohn.  His  admiration  for  the  last  named,  in 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THE  MAN  55 


fact,  helped  to  alienate  him  from  Wagner,  who  regarded 
the  Mendelssohn  scheme  of  things  as  unspeakable. 

Nietzsche’s  own  compositions  were  decidedly  heavy 
and  scholastic.  He  was  a skillful  harmonist  and  contra- 
puntalist,  but  his  musical  ideas  lacked  life.  Into  the 
simplest  songs  he  introduced  harsh  and  far-fetched 
modulations.  The  music  of  Richard  Strauss,  who  pro- 
fesses to  be  his  disciple  and  has  found  inspiration  in  his 
“ Also  sprach  Zarathustra  ” would  have  delighted  him. 
Strauss  has  achieved  the  uncanny  feat  of  writing  in  two 
keys  at  once.  Such  an  effort  would  have  enlisted  Niet- 
zsche’s keen  interest. 

All  the  same,  his  music  was  not  a mere  creature  of  the 
study  and  of  rules,  and  we  have  evidence  that  he  was 
frequently  inspired  to  composition  by  bursts  of  strong 
emotion.  On  his  way  to  the  Franco- Prussian  war,  he 
wrote  a patriotic  song,  words  and  music,  on  the  train. 
He  called  it  “ Adieu  ! I Must  Go  ! ” and  arranged  it  for 
men’s  chorus,  a capella.  It  would  be  worth  while  to  hear 
a German  mannerchor,  with  its  high,  beery  tenors,  and 
ponderous  basses,  sing  this  curious  composition.  Cer- 
tainly no  more  grotesque  music  was  ever  put  on  paper 
by  mortal  man. 

Much  has  been  written  by  various  commentators  about 
the  strange  charm  of  Nietzsche’s  prose  style.  He  was, 
indeed,  a master  of  the  German  language,  but  this  mastery 
was  not  inborn.  Like  Spencer  he  made  a deliberate  effort, 
early  in  life,  to  acquire  ease  and  force  in  writing.  His 
success  was  far  greater  than  Spencer’s.  Toward  the  end 
— in  “ Der  Antichrist ,”  for  instance  — he  attained  a 
degree  of  powerful  and  convincing  utterance  almost 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


56 

comparable  to  Huxley’s.  But  his  style  never  exhibited 
quite  that  wonderful  air  of  clearness,  of  utter  certainty,  of 
inevitableness  which  makes  the  “ Lay  Sermons  ” so 
tremendously  impressive.  Nietzsche  was  ever  nearer  to 
Carlyle  than  to  Addison.  “ His  style,”  says  a writer  in  the 
Athenccum,  “ is  a shower  of  sparks,  which  scatter,  like 
fireworks,  all  over  the  sky.” 

“ My  sense  for  form,”  says  Nietzsche  himself,  “ awak- 
ened on  my  coming  in  contact  with  Sallust.”  Later  on  he 
studied  the  great  French  stylists,  particularly  Laroche- 
faucauld,  and  learned  much  from  them.  He  became  a 
master  of  the  aphorism  and  the  epigram,  and  this  skill, 
very  naturally,  led  him  to  descend,  now  and  then,  to  mere 
violence  and  invective.  He  called  his  opponents  all  sorts 
of  harsh  names  — liar,  swindler,  counterfeiter,  ox,  ass, 
snake  and  thief.  Whatever  he  had  to  say,  he  hammered 
in  with  gigantic  blows,  and  to  the  accompaniment  of  fear- 
some bellowing  and  grimacing.  “ Nervous,  vivid  and 
picturesques,  full  of  fire  and  a splendid  vitality,”  says  one 
critic,  “ his  style  flashed  and  coruscated  like  a glowing 
flame,  and  had  a sort  of  dithyrambic  movement  that  at 
times  recalls  the  swing  of  the  Pindaric  odes.”  Naturally, 
this  very  abandon  made  his  poetry  formless  and  grotesque. 
He  scorned  metres  and  rhymes  and  raged  on  in  sheer 
savagery.  Reading  his  verses  one  is  forced  irresistibly  into 
the  thought  that  they  should  be  printed  in  varied  fonts 
of  type  and  in  a dozen  brilliant  inks. 

Nietzsche  never  married,  but  he  was  by  no  means  a 
misogynist.  His  sister  tells  us,  indeed,  that  he  made  a 
formal  proposal  of  marriage  to  a young  Dutch  woman, 
Fraulein  Tr , at  Geneva  in  1876,  and  the  story  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THE  MAN  57 


his  melodramatic  affair  with  Mile.  Lou  Salome,  six  years 
later,  was  briefly  rehearsed  in  the  last  chapter.  There 
were  also  other  women  in  his  life,  early  and  late,  and 
certain  scandal-mongers  do  not  hesitate  to  accuse  him 
of  a passion  for  Cosima  Wagner,  apparently  on  the 
ground  that  he  wrote  to  her,  in  his  last  mad  days,  “ Ari- 
adne, I love  thee!  ” But  his  intentions  were  seldom 
serious.  Even  when  he  pursued  Mile.  Salome  from  Rome 
to  Leipsic  and  quarrelled  with  his  sister  about  her,  and 
threatened  poor  Ree  with  fire-arms,  there  is  good  reason 
to  believe  that  he  shied  at  bell  and  book.  His  proposal, 
in  brief,  was  rather  one  of  a free  union  than  one  of  mar- 
riage. For  the  rest,  he  kept  safely  to  impossible  flirta- 
tions. During  all  his  wanderings  he  was  much  petted 
by  the  belles  of  pump  room  and  hotel  parlor,  not  only 
because  he  was  a mysterious  and  romantic  looking  fel- 
low, but  also  because  his  philosophy  was  thought  to  be 
blasphemous  and  indecent,  particularly  by  those  who 
knew  nothing  about  it.  But  the  fair  admirers  he  singled 
out  were  either  securely  married  or  hopelessly  antique. 
“ For  me  to  marry,”  he  soliloquized  in  1887,  “ would 
probably  be  sheer  asininity.” 

There  are  sentimental  critics  who  hold  that  Nietzsche’s 
utter  lack  of  geniality  was  due  to  his  lack  of  a wife.  A 
good  woman  — alike  beautiful  and  sensible  — would 
have  rescued  him,  they  say,  from  his  gloomy  fancies.  He 
would  have  expanded  and  mellowed  in  the  sunshine  of 
her  smiles,  and  children  would  have  civilized  him.  The 
defect  in  this  theory  lies  in  the  fact  that  philosophers  do 
not  seem  to  flourish  amid  scenes  of  connubial  joy.  High 
thinking,  it  would  appear,  presupposes  boarding  house 


58 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


fare  and  hall  bed-rooms.  Spinoza,  munching  his  solitary 
herring  up  his  desolate  backstairs,  makes  a picture  that 
pains  us,  perhaps,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  also 
satisfies  our  sense  of  eternal  fitness.  A married  Spinoza, 
with  two  sons  at  college,  another  managing  the  family 
lens  business,  a daughter  busy  with  her  trousseau  and  a 
wife  growing  querulous  and  fat  — the  vision,  alas,  is 
preposterous,  outrageous  and  impossible ! We  must 
think  of  philosophers  as  beings  alone  but  not  lonesome. 
A married  Schopenhauer  or  Kant  or  Nietzsche  would  be 
unthinkable. 

That  a venture  into  matrimony  might  have  somewhat 
modified  Nietzsche’s  view  of  womankind  is  not  at  all  im- 
probable, but  that  this  change  would  have  been  in  the  direc- 
tion of  greater  accuracy  does  not  follow.  He  would  have 
been  either  a ridiculously  henpecked  slave  or  a violent  do- 
mestic tyrant.  As  a bachelor  he  was  comparatively  well- 
to-do,  but  with  a wife  and  children  his  thousand  a year 
would  have  meant  genteel  beggary.  His  sister  had  her 
own  income  and  her  own  affairs.  When  he  needed  her, 
she  was  ever  at  his  side,  but  when  his  working  fits  were 
upon  him  — when  he  felt  efficient  and  self-sufficient  — she 
discreetly  disappeared.  A wife’s  constant  presence,  day 
in  and  day  out,  would  have  irritated  him  beyond  measure 
or  reduced  him  to  a state  of  compliance  and  sloth.  Niet- 
zsche himself  sought  to  show,  in  more  than  one  place,  that 
a man  whose  whole  existence  was  colored  by  one  woman 
would  inevitably  acquire  some  trace  of  her  feminine  out- 
look, and  so  lose  his  own  sure  vision.  The  ideal  state 
for  a philosopher,  indeed,  is  celibacy  tempered  by  polyg- 
amy. He  must  study  women,  but  he  must  be  free,  when 


THE  PHILOSOPHER  AND  THE  MAN  59 


he  pleases,  to  close  his  note  book  and  go  away  and  digest 
its  contents  with  an  open  mind. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  life,  when  increasing  illness  made 
him  helpless,  Nietzsche’s  faithful  sister  took  the  place  of 
wife  and  mother  in  his  clouding  world.  She  made  a home 
for  him  and  she  sat  by  and  watched  him.  They  talked 
for  hours  — Nietzsche  propped  up  with  pillows,  his  old 
ruddiness  faded  into  a deathly  white,  and  his  Niagara 
of  a moustache  showing  dark  against  his  pallid  skin. 
They  talked  of  Naumburg  and  the  days  of  long  ago  and 
the  fiery  prophet  of  the  superman  became  simple  Brother 
Fritz.  We  are  apt  to  forget  that  a great  man  is  thus 
not  only  great,  but  also  a man:  that  a philosopher,  in 
a life  time,  spends  less  hours  pondering  the  destiny  of  the 
race  than  he  gives  over  to  wondering  if  it  will  rain  to- 
morrow and  to  meditating  upon  the  toughness  of  steaks, 
the  dustiness  of  roads,  the  stuffiness  of  railway  coaches 
and  the  brigandage  of  gas  companies. 

Nietzsche’s  sister  was  the  only  human  being  that  ever 
saw  him  intimately,  as  a wife  might  have  seen  him.  Her 
affection  for  him  was  perfect  and  her  influence  over  him 
perfect,  too.  Love  and  understanding,  faith  and  gentle- 
ness — these  are  the  things  which  make  women  the  angels 
of  joyous  illusion.  Lisbeth,  the  calm  and  trusting,  had 
all  in  boundless  richness.  There  was,  indeed,  something 
noble,  and  almost  holy  in  the  eagerness  with  which  she 
sought  her  brother’s  comfort  and  peace  of  mind  during 
his  days  of  stress  and  storm,  and  magnified  his  virtues  after 
he  was  gone. 


NIETZSCHE  THE  PHILOSOPHER 


DIONYSUS  VERSUS  APOLLO 


In  one  of  the  preceding  chapters  Nietzsche’s  theory 
of  Greek  tragedy  was  given  in  outline  and  its  dependence 
upon  the  data  of  Schopenhauer’s  philosophy  was  indi- 
cated. It  is  now  in  order  to  examine  this  theory  a bit  more 
closely  and  to  trace  cut  its  origin  and  development  with 
greater  dwelling  upon  detail.  In  itself  it  is  of  interest  only 
as  a step  forward  in  the  art  of  literary  criticism,  but  in  its 
influence  upon  Nietzsche’s  ultimate  inquiries  it  has  colored, 
to  a measurable  extent,  the  whole  stream  of  modem 
thought. 

Schopenhauer  laid  down,  as  his  cardinal  principle,  it 
will  be  recalled,  the  idea  that,  in  all  the  complex  whirl- 
pool of  phenomena  we  call  human  life,  the  mere  will  to 
survive  is  at  the  bottom  of  everything,  and  that  intelli- 


:s  seeming  kingship  in  civilization,  is 


. ,er  all,  than  a secondary  manifestation  of 

this  primary  will.  In  certain  purely  artificial  situations, 
it  may  seem  to  us  that  reason  stands  alone  (as  when,  for 
example,  we  essay  to  solve  an  abstract  problem  in  mathe- 
matics), but  in  everything  growing  out  of  our  relations  as 
human  beings,  one  to  the  other,  the  old  instinct  of  race- 
and-self-preservation  is  plainly  discernible.  All  of  our 


64 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


acts,  when  they  are  not  based  obviously  and  directly 
upon  our  yearning  to  eat  and  take  our  ease  and  beget  our 
kind,  are  founded  upon  our  desire  to. appear  superior,  in 
some  way  or  other,  to  our  fellow  men  about  us,  and  this 
desire  for  superiority,  reduced-  to  its  lowest  terms,  is 
merely  a desire  to  face~the  struggle  for  eastence  — to  eat 
and  ~ beget  undenhore  favorableconditionstharLlhose 

the  world  accords  the  average  man.  “ Happiness  is  the 
feeling  :hat  power  increases’— that  resistance  is  being 
overcome.”  1 

Nietzsche  went  to  Basel  firmly  convinced  that  these 
fundamental  ideas  of  Schopenhauer  were  profoundly 
true,  though  he  soon  essayed  to  make  an  amendment 
to  them.  This  amendment  consisted  in  changing  Schopen- 
hauer’s “ will  to  five  ” into  “ will  to  power.”  That  which 
does  not  five,  he  argued,  cannot  exercise  a will  to  five,  and 
when  a thing  is  already  in  existence,  how  can  it  strive 
after  existence?  Nietzsche  voiced  the  argument  many 
times,  but  its  vacuity  is  apparent  upon  brief  inspection. 
He  started  out,  in  fact,  with  an  incredibly  clumsy  mis- 
interpretation of  Schopenhauer’s  phrase.  The  philoso- 
pher of  pessimism,  when  he  said  “ will  to  five  ” obviously 
meant,  not  will  to  begin  living,  but  will  to  continue  living. 
Now,  this  will  to  continue  living,  if  we  are  to  accept  words 
at  their  usual  meaning,  is  plainly  identical,  in  every  respect, 
with  Nietzsche’s  will  to  power.  Therefore,  Nietzsche’s 
amendment  was  nothing  more  than  the  coinage  of  a new 
phrase  to  express  an  old  idea.  The  unity  of  the  two 
philosophers  and  the  identity  of  the  two  phrases  are  proved 
a thousand  times  by  Nietzsche’s  own  discourses.  Like 


1 “ Der  Antichrist § 2. 


DIONYSUS  VERSUS  APOLLO 


65 

Schopenhauer  he  believed  that  all  human  ideas  were  the 
direct  products  of  the  unconscious  and  unceasing  effort 
of  all  living  creatures  to  remain  alive.  Like  Schopenhauer 
he  believed  that  abstract  ideas,  in  man,  arose  out  of 
concrete  ideas,  and  that  the  latter  arose  out  of  experience, 
which,  in  turn,  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  an  ordered 
remembrance  of  the  results  following  an  endless  series 
of  endeavors  to  meet  the  conditions  of  existence  and  so 
survive.  Like  Schopenhauer,  he  believed  that  the  criminal 
laws,  the  poetry,  the  cookery  and  the  religion  of  a race  were 
alike  expressions  of  this  unconscious  groping  for  the  line 
of  least  resistance. 

As  a philologist,  Nietzsche’s  interest,  very  naturally, 
was  fixed  upon  the  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and 
so  it  was  but  natural  that  his  first  tests  of  Schopenhauer’s 
doctrines  should  be  made  in  that  field.  Some  time  before 
this,  he  had  asked  himself  (as  many  another  man  had 
asked  before  him)  why  it  was  that,  the  arur'eni  Greeksa 
who  were  an  efficient  and  vigorous  people  kving  in  a green 
and  sunny  land,  should  so  delight  in  gloomy  tragedies. 
One  would  fancy  that  a Greek,  when  he  set  out  to  spend 
a pleasant  afternoon,  would  seek  entertainment  that  was 
frivolous  and  gay.  But  instead,  he  often  preferred  to 
see  one  of  the  plays  of  Thespis,  kEschylus,  Phrynichus 
or  Pratinus,  in  which  the  heroes  fought,  jiopeless  battles. 
with  fate  _ and  died  miserably,  in  wretchedness  and  ,.de-- 
spair.  Nietzsche  concluded  that  the  Greeks  had  thjsu— 
liking  for  tragedy  because  it  seemed  to  them  to  set  forth, 
truthfully-  and  understandably,  the  conditions  of  fife  as 
they  found  it:  that  it  appeared  to  them  as  a reasonable 
and  accurate  picture  of^  human  existence.  The  gods  or- 


66 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


dered  the  drama  on  the  real  stage  of  the  world:  the 
^dramatist  ordered  the  drama  on  the  mimic  stage  of  the 
theatre^  and  the  latter  attained  credibility  and  veri- 
smuEtude  in  proportion  as  it  approached  an  exact  imita- 
tion or  reproduction  of  the  former.  Nietzsche  saw  that 
this  quality  of  realism  was  the  essence  of  all  stage  plays. 
“ Only  insofar  as  the  dramatist,”  he  said,  “ coalesces 
with  the  priordial  dramatist  of  the  world,  does  he  reach 
the  true  function  of  his  craft.”  1 “ Man  posits  himself 

as  the  standard  ...  A race  cannot  do  otherwise  than  thus 
acquiesce  in  itself.”  2 In  other  words,  man  is  interested 
in  nothing  whatever  that  has  no  bearing  upon  his  own 
fate : he  himself  is  his  own  hero.  Thus  the  ancient  Greeks 
were  fond  of  tragedy  because  it  reflected  their  life  in 
miniature.  In  the  mighty  warriors  who  stalked  the  boards 
and  defied  the  gods  each  Greek  recognized  himself.  In 
the  conflicts  on  the  stage  he  saw  replicas  of  that  titanic 
conflict  T '.b  seemed  to  him  to  be  the  eternal  essence 
of  human  existei  ze. 

TSht"W"cfid  the  Greeks,  regard  -life-  as  a conflict?  In 
seeking  an  answer  to  this  Nietzsche  studied  the  growth 
of  their  civilization  and  of  their  race  ideas.  These  race 
ideas,  as  among  all  other  peoples,  were  visualized  and 
crystallized  in  the  qualities,  virtues  and  opinions  attributed 
to  the  racial  gods.  Therefore,  Nietzsche  undertook  an 
inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  gods  set  up  bv_ the  Greeks, 
and  particularly  into  the  nature  of  the  two  gods  who 
controlled  the  general  scheme  of  Greek  life,  and,  in 
consequence,  of  Grcek  affp^TOT^aTtpas^we^haW  seen,  is 

i “ Die  Geburt  der  Tragodie § 5. 

* “ Gotzendammerung ix,  § 19. 


DIONYSUS  VERSUS  APOLLO 


67 


nothing  more  or  less  than  a race’s  view  or  opinion  of  itself, 
i.  e.  an  expression  of  the  things  it  sees  and  the  conclusions  ^ 
it  draws  when  it  observes  and  considers  itself.  These  gods 
were  Apollo  and  Dionysus. 

-T^Apoird,  according  to  the  Greeks,  was  the  inventor  of 
music,  poetry  and  oratory,  and  as  such,  became  the  god 
of  all  art.  Under  his  beneficent  sway  the  Greeks  became 
a Tace"  of  artists  and  acquired  all—the^refinement  and 
culture  that  this  implies.  But  the  art  that  he  taught  them 
was  essentially  contemplative  and  subjective.  It  de- 
picted, not  so  much  things  as  they  were,  as  things  as  they 
had  been.  Thus  it  became  a mere  record,  and  as  such, 
exhibited  repose  as  its  chief  quality.  Whether  it  were 
expressed  as  sculpture,  architecture,  painting  or  epic 
poetry,  this  element  of  repose,  or  of  action  translated  into 
repose,  was  uppermost.  A painting  of  a man  running,  no 
matter  how  vividly  it  suggests  the  vitality  and  activity  of 
the  runner,  is  itself  a thing  inert  and  lifeless.  Architecture, 
no  matter  how  much  its  curves  suggest  motion  and  its 
hard  lines  the  strength  which  may  be  translated  into 
energy,  is  itself  a thing  immovable.  Poetry,  so  long  as  it 
takes  the  form  of  the  epic  and  is  thus  merely  a chronicle 
of  past  actions,  is  as  lifeless,  at  bottom,  as  a tax  list. 

The  Greeks,  during  Apollo’s  reign  as  god  of  art,  thus 
turned  art  into  a mere  inert  fossil  or  record  — a record 
either  of  human  life  itself , or  of  the  emotions  which  the 
vicissitudes  of  life  arouse  in  the  spectator.  -This  notion 
of  art  was  reflected  in  their  whole  civilization.  They 
became  ^jngers  of  songs  and  weavers  of  metaphysical 
webs  rather  than~dbers~of'deeds1  and  the  man  who  could 
carve  a flower  was  more  honored  among  them  than  the 


68 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


man  who  could  grow  one.  In  brief,  they  began  to  degen- 
erate and  go  stale.  Great  men  and  great  ideas  grew  few. 
They  were  on  the  downward  road. 

What  they  needed,  of  course,  was  the  shock  of  contact 
with  some  barbarous,  primitive  people  — an  infusion  of 
good  red  blood  from  some  race  that  was  still  fighting  for 
its  daily  bread  and  had  had  no  time  to  grow  contempla- 
tive and  retrospective  and  fat.  This  infusion  of  red  blood 
came  in  good  time,  but  instead  of  coming  from  without 
(as  it  did  years  afterward  in  Rome,  when  the  Goths 
swooped  down  from  the  North),  it  came  from  within.  That 
is  to  say,  there  was  no  actual  invasion  of  barbarian  hordes, 
but  merely  an  auto-reversion  to  simpler  and  more  primi- 
tive ideas,  which  fanned  the  dormant  energy  of  the  Greeks 
into  flame  and  so  allowed  them  to  accomplish  their  own 
salvation.  This  impulse  came  in  the  form  of  a sudden 
craze“for''a  new  god  — /'Bacchus  Dionysus. 

Bacchus  was  a rude,  boisterous  fellow  and  the  very 
antithesis  of  the  quiet,  contemplative  Apollo.  We  re- 
member him  today  merely  as ‘the  god  of  wine,  but  in  his 
time  he  stood,  not  only  for  drinking  and  carousing, , but 
also  for  a whole  system  of  art  and  a whole  notion  of 
civilization.  Apollo  represented  the  life  meditative; 

-t^irpe.fntf'rl  the  life  strenuous.  The 
one  favored  those  forms  of  art  by  which  human  existence 
is  halted  and  embalmed  in  some  lifeless  medium  — 
sculpture,  architecture,  painting  or  epic  poetry.  The 
other  was  the  god  of  life  in  process  of  actual  being,  and  so 
stood  for  those  forms  of  art  which  are  not  mere  records  or 
reflections  of  past  existence,  but  brief  snatches  of  present 
existence  itself  — dancing,  singing,  music  and  the  drama. 


DIONYSUS  VERSUS  APOLLO 


69 


It  will  be  seen  that  this  barbarous  invasion  of  the  new, 
god  and  his  minions  made  a profound  change  in  the  whole 
of  Greek  culture.  Instead  of  devoting  their  time  to  writing 
epics,  praising  the  laws,  splitting  philosophical  hairs  and 
hewing  dead  marble,  the  Greeks  began  to  question  all 
things  made  and  ordained  and  to  indulge  in  riotous  and 
gorgeous  orgies,  in  which  thousands  of  maidens  danced 
and  hundreds  of  poets  chanted  songs  of  love  and  war,  and 
musicians  vied  with  cooks  and  vintners  to  make  a grand 
delirium  of  joy.  The  result  was  that  the  entire  outlook 
of  the  Greeks,  upon  history,  upon  morality  and  upon 
human  life,  was  changed.  Once  a people  of  lofty  introT 
spcction  and  elegant  repose,  they  became  a race  of  violent 
activity  and  strong  emotions.  They  began  to  devote 
themselves,  not  to  writing  down  the  praises  of  existence 
as  they  had  found  it,  but  to  the  task  of  improving  life  and 
of  widening  the  scope  of  present  and  future  human  ac- 
tivity and  the  bounds  of  possible  human  happiness. 1 

But  in  time  there_came  a reaction  and  Apollo  once 
more  triumphed.  He  reigned  for  awETeT'unsteadily  and 
uncertainly,  and  then,  again,  the  pendulum  swung  to  the 
other  side!  Thus  the  Greeks  swayed  from  one  god  to 
tKe  other.  During  Apollo’s  periods  of  ascendancy  they 
were  contemplative  and  imaginative,  and  man,  to  them, 
seemed  to  reacEhisloftiest  heights  when  he  was  most  the 
historian.  But  when  Dionysus  was  their  best-beloved, 

1 “ This  enrichment  of  consciousness  among  the  Greeks  . . . showed 
itself  first  ir  the  development  of  lyric  poetry,  in  which  the  gradual  trans- 
ition from  1 the  expression  of  universal  religious  and  political  feeling  to 
that  which  is  personal  and  individual  formed  a typical  process.  ” Dr. 
Wilhelm  Windelband,  “ A History  of  Ancient  Philosophy,”  tr.  by  H.  E. 
Cushr^S,  p.  18  ; New  York,  1901. 


7o 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


they  bubbled  over  with  the  joy  of  life,  and  man  seemed, 
not  an  historian,  but~a~ maker  of  history  — not  an  artist, 
but  a work  oi  art.  In  the  end,  they  verged  toward  a safe 
/ middle  ground  and  began  to  weigh,  with  cool  and  calm, 
the  ideas  represented  by  the  two  gods.  When  they  had 
done  so,  they  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  .not  well 

to  give  themselves  unreservedly  to  either.  To  attain  the- 

highest  happiness,  they  decided,  humanity  required  a 
dash  of  both.  There  was  need  in  the  world  for  dionysians, 
to  give  vitality  an  outlet  and  hielT purpose,  and  there  was 
~heed,  too,  ioT  apollonians,  to  build  life’s  monuments  and 
read  its  lessons.  They  found  that  true  civilization  meant 
a constant  conflict  between  the  two  — between  the  dreamer 
and  the  man  of  action,  betweeiTlhe  artist  whcT  builds 
temples  and  the  soldier  who  burns  them  down,  between  the 
priest  and  policeman  who  insist  upon  the  permanence  of 
laws  and  customs  as  they  are  and  the  criminal  and  reformer 
and  conqueror  who  insist  that  theydhe  _changedT_7 
When  they  had  learned  this  lesson,  the  reeks  began 
to  soar  to  heights  'of  culture  and  civilization  that,  in  the 
past,  had  been  utterly  beyond  them,  and  so  long  as  they 
maintained  the  balance  between  Apollo  and  Dionysus 
they  continued  to  advance.  But  now  and  again,  one  god 
or  the  other  grew  stronger,  and  then  there  was  a halt. 
When  Apollo  had  the  upper  hand,  Greece  became  too 
contemplative  and  too  placid.  When  Dionysus  was  the 
victor,  Greece  became  wild  and  thoughtless  and  careless 
of  the  desires  of  others,  and  so  turned  a bit  toward  bar- 
barism. This  seesawing  continued  for  a long  wnile,  but 
Apollo  was  the  final  victor  — if  victor  Jiypmay  be  called. 
In  the  eternal  struggle  for  existence  Greece  bee -me  a 


DIONYSUS  VERSUS  APOLLO 


71 


mere  looker-on.  Her  highest  honors  went  to  Socrates, 
a man  who  tried  to  reduce  all  life  to  syllogisms.  Her 
favorite  sons  were  rhetoricians,  dialecticians  and  philo- 
sophical cobweb-spinners.  She  placed  ideas  above  deeds. 
And  in  the  end,  as  all  students  of  history  know,  the  state 
that  once  ruled  the  world  descended  to  senility  ana  depay, 
'and  dionysians  from  without  overranjt,  and  it  perished 
^^liaTdrty~and  carnage.  But  with  this  we  have  nothing 
.tojio. 

Nietzsche  noticed  that  tragedy  was  most  popular  in 
Greece  during  theb'est"7Tays  of  the  country’?  culture, 
when  Apollo  and  Dionysus  were  properly  balanced,  one_ 
against  ‘ IhFofKeri  Tins  ideal  balancing  betweeJUtheTwo 
gods  was  the  result,  he  concluded,  not  of  conscious,  but 
of  unconscious  impulses.  That  is  to  say,  the  Greeks  did 
not  call  parhaments  ancf  discuss  the  matter,  as  they  might 
have  discussed  a question  of  taxes,  but  acted  entirely 
in  obedience  to  their  racial  instinct.  This  instinct this, 
will  to  live  or  desire  for  power  — led  jjigm  to  feel,  without 
putting  it  into  words, _or  even,  for  awhile,  into  definite 
t hought s ~ that  They  were  happiest  and „ safest  and  most 
vigorous,  and  so  best  able  to  preserve  their  national  exist- 
ence, when  they  kept  to  the  golden  mean.  They  didn’t 
reason  it  out ; they  merely  felt  it. 

But  as  Schopenhauer  shows  us,  instinct,  long  exercised, 
means  experience,  and  the  memory  of  experience,  in  the 
end,  crystallizes  into  what  we  call  intelligence  or  reason. 
Thus  the  unconscious  Greek  feeling  that  the  golden  mean 
best  served  the  race,  finally  took  the  form  of  an  idea : 
i.  e.  that  human  fife  was  an  endless  conflict  between  two 
forces,  or  impulses.  ~ TheseTasT'heTIreeks  saw  them,  were 


72 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


U\>A" 


4' 





the  dionysian  impulse  to  destroy,  to  burn  the  candle,  to 
“use  up”  life;  and  the  apollonian  impulse  to  preserve. 
Seeing  life  in  this  light,  it  was  but  natural  that  the  Greeks 
should  try  to  exhibit  it  in  the  same  light  on  their  stage. 
And  so  their  tragedies  were  invariably  founded _upon  some 
deadly jmd  .unending  conflict  — usually  between  a human 
hero  and  the  gods.  In  a word,  they  made  their  stage  plays 
set  forth  life  as  they  saw  it  and  found  it,  for,  like  all  other 
human  beings,  at  all  times  and  everywhere,  they  were 
more  interested  in  life  as  they  found  it  than  in  .anything 
else  on  the  earth  below  or  in  the  vasty  void  above. 

When  Nietzsche  had  worked  nut  this  theory  of  Greek _ 
tragedy  and  of  Greek  life,  he  set  out,  at  once,  to  apply 
it  to  modern  civilization^to  see  if  it  could  explain  certain 
ideas  of  the  present  as  satisfactorily  as  it  had  explained 
one  greaF  IdeaToFthe  past.  He  found  that  it  could : that 
men  were"  still  tom  between  the  apollonian  impulse  to 
conform  and  moralize  and  the  dionysian  impulse  to  exploit 
and  explore.  He  found  that  all  mankind  might  be  divided 
into  two  classes:  the  apollonians  who  stood  for  perma- 
nence and  the  dionysians  who  stood  for  change.  It  was 
the  aim  of  the  former  to  live  in  strict  obedience  to  certain 
invariable  rules,  which  found  expression  as  religion,  law 
and  morality.  It  was  the  aim  of  the  latter  to  live  under 
the  most  favorable  conditions  possible;  to  adapt  them- 
selves to  changing  circumstances,  and  to  avoid  the  snares 
of  artificial,  permanent  rules. 

Nietzsche  believed  that  an  ideal  human  society  would 
be  one  m which  these  two  classes  of  men  were  evenly 
balanced  — in  which  a vast,  inert,  religious,  moral_slave 
class  stood  beneath  a small,  alert,  iconoclastic,  immoral, 


DIONYSUS  VERSUS  APOLLO 


73 


i 


progressive  master  class.  He  held  tha^  this  master  class  — 
this  aristocracy  of  efficiency  — should  regard  the  slave 
class  as  all  men  now  regard  the  tribe  of  domestic  beasts : 
as  an  order  of  servitors  to  be  exploited  and  turned  to  ac- 
count. The  aristocracy  of  Europe,  though  it  sought  to  do 
this  with  respect  to  the  workers  of  Europe,  seemed  to  him 
to  fail  miserably,  because  it  was  itself  lacking  in  true 
efficiency.  Instead  of  practising  a magnificent  opportun- 
ism and  so  adapting  itself  to  changing  conditions,  it  stood 
for  formalism  and  permanence.  Its  fetish  was  property 
in  land  and  the  worship  of  this  fetish  had  got  it  into  such 
a rut  that  it  was  becoming  less  and  less  fitted  to  survive, 
and  was,  indeed,  fast  sinking  into  helpless  parasitism. 
Its  whole  color  and  complexion  were  essentially  apollonic.*  1 

Therefore  Nietzsche  preached  the  gospel  of  Dionysus, 
that  a new  aristocracy  of  efficiency  might  take  the  place  of 
this  old  aristocracy  of  memories  and  inherited  glories. 

He  believed  that  it  was  only  in  this  way  that  mankind 
could  hope  to  forge  ahead.  He  believed  that  there  was 
need  in  the  world  for  a class  freed  from  the  handicap 
of  law  and  morality,  a class  acutely  adaptable  and  im- 
moral ; a class  bent  on  achieving,  not  the  equality  of  all 
men,  but  the  production,  at  the  top,  of  the  superman. 

1 Vide  the  chapter  on  “ Civilization.” 


n 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 

It  may  be  urged  with  some  reason,  by  those  who  have 
read  the  preceding  chapter  carefully,  that  the  Nietzschean 
argument,  so  far,  has  served  only  to  bring  us  face  to  face 
with  a serious  contradiction.  We  have  been  asked  to 
believe  that  all  human  impulses  are  merely  expressions 
of  the  primary  instinct  to  preserve  life  by  meeting  the 
changing  conditions  of  existence,  and  in  the  same  breath 
we  have  been  asked  to  believe,  too,  that  the  apollonian 
idea  — which,  like  all  other  ideas,  must  necessarily  be  a 
result  of  this  instinct  — destroys  adaptability  and  so  tends 
to  make  life  extra  hazardous  and  difficult  and  progress 
impossible.  Here  we  have  our  contradiction:  the  will 
to  live  is  achieving,  not  life,  but  death.  How  are  we  to 
explain  it  away  ? How  are  we  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
the  apollonian  idea  at  the  bottom  of  Christian  morality, 
for  example,  despite  its  origin  in  the  will  to  live,  has  an 
obvious  tendency  to  combat  free  progress  ? How  are  we 
to  account  for  the  fact  that  the  church,  which  is  based  upon 
this  Christian  morality,  is,  always  has  been  and  ever  will 
be  a bitter  and  implacable  foe  of  good  health,  intellectual 
freedom,  self-defense  and  every  other  essential  factor 
of  efficiency? 


74 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 


75 


Nietzsche  answers  this  by  pointing  out  that  an  idea, 
while  undoubtedly  an  effect  or  expression  of  the  primary 
life  instinct,  is  by  no  means  identical  with  it.  The  latter 
manifests  itself  in  widely  different  acts  as  conditions 
change : it  is  necessarily  opportunistic  and  variable. 
The  former,  on  the  contrary,  has  a tendency  to  survive 
unchanged,  even  after  its  truth  is  transformed  into  falsity. 
That  is  to  say,  an  idea  which  arises  from  a true  and 
healthy  instinct  may  survive  long  after  this  instinct  itself, 
in  consequence  of  the  changing  conditions  of  existence, 
has  disappeared  and  given  place  to  an  instinct  diametric- 
ally opposite,  J This  survival  of  ideas  we  call  morality. 
By  its  operation  the  human  race  is  frequently  saddled 
with  the  notions  of  generations  long  dead  and  forgotten,  j 
Thus  we  modem  Christians  still  subscribe  to  the  apol- 
lonian  morality  of  the  ancient  Jews  — our  moral  fore- 
bears — despite  the  fact  that  their  ideas  were  evolved 
under  conditions  vastly  different  from  those  which  con- 
front us  today.  Thus  the  expressions  of  the  life  instinct, 
by  obtaining  an  artificial  and  unnatural  permanence, 
turn  upon  the  instinct  itself  and  defeat  its  beneficent 
purpose.  Thus  our  contradiction  is  explained. 

To  make  this  rather  complicated  reasoning  more  clear 
it  is  necessary  to  follow  Nietzsche  through  the  devious 
twists  and  windings  of  his  exhaustive  inquiry  into  the 
origin  of  moral  codes.  In  making  this  inquiry  he  tried 
to  rid  himself  of  all  considerations  of  authority  and  rev- 
erence, just  as  a surgeon,  in  performing  a difficult  and 
painful  operation,  tries  to  rid  himself  of  all  sympathy 
and  emotion.  Adopting  this  plan,  he  found  that  a code 
of  morals  was  nothing  more  than  a system  of  customs, 


76 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


laws  and  ideas  which  had  its  origin  in  the  instinctive 
desire  of  some  definite  race  to  live  under  conditions  which 
best  subserved  its  own  welfare.  The  morality  of  the 
Egyptians,  he  found,  was  one  thing,  and  the  morality  of 
the  Goths  was  another.  The  reason  for  the  difference 
lay  in  the  fact  that  the  environment  of  the  Egyptians  — 
the  climate  of  their  land,  the  nature  of  their  food  supply 
and  the  characteristics  of  the  peoples  surrounding  them  — 
differed  from  the  environment  of  the  Goths.  The  morality 
of  each  race  was,  in  brief,  its  consensus  of  instinct,  and 
once  having  formulated  it  and  found  it  good,  each  sought 
to  give  it  force  and  permanence.  This  was  accomplished 
by  putting  it  into  the  mouths  of  the  gods.  What  was  once 
a mere  expression  of  instinct  thus  became  the  mandate 
of  a divine  law-giver.  What  was  once  a mere  attempt 
to  meet  imminent  — and  usually  temporary  — conditions 
of  existence,  thus  became  a code  of  rules  to  be  obeyed 
forever,  no  matter  how  much  these  conditions  of  existence 
might  change.  Wherefore,  Nietzsche  concluded  that  the 
chief  characteristic  of  a moral  system  was  its  tendency 
to  perpetuate  itself  unchanged,  and  to  destroy  all  who 
questioned  it  or  denied  it.1 

Nietzsche  saw  that  practically  all  members  of  a given 
race,  including  the  great  majority  of  those  who  vio- 
lated these  rules,  were  influenced  into  believing  them 

1 II  Thess.  II,  15 : “ Hold  the  tradition  which  ye  have  been  taught.” 
Eusebius  Pamphilus  : “ Those  things  which  are  written  believe  ; those 
things  which  are  not  written,  neither  think  upon  nor  inquire  after.” 
St.  Austin  : “ Whatever  ye  hear  from  the  holy  scriptures  let  it  favor 
well  with  you  ; whatever  is  without  them  refuse.”  See  also  St.  Basil, 
Tertullian  and  every  other  professional  moralist  since,  down  to  John 
Alexander  Uowie  and  Emperor  William  of  Germany. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 


77 


— or  at  least  into  professing  to  believe  them  — utterly 
and  unchangeably  correct,  and  that  it  was  the  main 
function  of  all  religions  to  enforce  and  support  them  by 
making  them  7111 1Xi‘‘  as  laws  laid  down,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  world,  by  the  ufid  of  the  universe  himself,  or  at 
some  later  period,  by  his  son,  messiah  or  spokesman. 
“ Morality,”  he  said,  “ not  only  commands  innumerable 
terrible  means  for  preventing  critical  hands  being  laid 
upon  her:  her  security  depends  still  more  upon  a sort  of 
enchantment  at  which  she  is  phenomenally  skilled.  That 
is  to  say,  she  knows  how  to  enrapture.  She  appeals  to  the 
emotions;  her  glance  paralyzes  the  reason  and  the  will. 
. . . Ever  since  there  has  been  talking  and  persuading  on 
earth,  she  has  been  the  supreme  mistress  of  seduction.”1 
Thus  “ a double  wall  is  put  up  against  the  continued  test- 
ing, ’ selection  and  criticism  of  values.  On  one  hand  is 
revelation,  and  on  the  other,  veneration  and  tradition. 
The  authority  of  the  law  is  based  upon  two  assumptions 

— first,  that  God  gave  it,  and  secondly,  that  the  wise  men 
of  the  past  obeyed  it.”  2 Nietzsche  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  this  universal  tendency  to  submit  to  moral  codes  — 
this  unreasonable,  emotional  faith  in  the  invariable  truth 
of  moral  regulations  — was  a curse  to  the  human  race  and 
the  chief  cause  of  its  degeneration,  inefficiency  and  un- 
happiness. And  then  he  threw  down  the  gauntlet  by 
denying  that  an  ever-present  deity  had  anything  to  do  with 
framing  such  codes  and  by  endeavoring  to  prove  that, 
far  from  being  eternally  true,  they  commonly  became 
false  with  the  passing  of  the  years.  Starting  out  as  ex- 
pressions of  the  primary  fife-instinct’s  effort  to  adapt 

1 “ Morgenrote preface,  § 3.  2 “ Der  Antichrist,"  § 57. 


78 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


r 


some  individual  or  race  to  certain  given  condiCjns  of 
existence,  they  took  no  account  of  the  fact  that  these 
conditions  were  constantly  chan^in hat  the  thing 
which  was  advantageous  at  one ahd  tbto  one  race  was 
frequently  injurious  at  some  o+her  time  and  to  another  race. 

This  reduction  of  all  morality  to  mere  expressions  of 
expedience  engaged  the  philosopher  during  what  he  calls 
his  “ tunneling  ” period.  To  exhibit  his  precise  method 
of  “ tunneling  ” let  us  examine,  for  example,  a moral  idea 
which  is  found  in  the  code  of  every  civilized  country. 
This  is  the  notion  that  there  is  something  inherently  and 
fundamentally  wrong  in  the  act  of  taking  human  life. 
We  have  good  reason  to  believe  that  murder  was  as  much 
a crime  5,000  years  ago  as  it  is  today  and  that  it  took 
rank  at  the  head  of  all  conceivable  outrages  against 
humankind  at  the  very  dawn  of  civilization.  And  why? 
Simply  because  the  man  who  took  his  neighbor’s  life 
made  the  life  of  everyone  else  in  his  neighborhood  pre- 
carious and  uncomfortable.  It  was  plain  that  what  he 
had  done  once  he  could  do  again,  and  so  the  peace  and 
security  of  the  whole  district  were  broken. 

Now,  it  is  apparent  that  the  average  human  being 
desires  peace  and  security  beyond  all  things,  because  it  is 
only  when  he  has  them  that  he  may  satisfy  his  will  to 
live  — by  procuring  food  and  shelter  for  himself  and  by 
becoming  the  father  of  children.  He  is  ill-fitted  to  fight 
for  his  existence ; the  mere  business  of  living  and  begetting 
his  kind  consumes  all  of  his  energies : “ the  world,  as  a 
world,”  as  Horace  Greeley  said,  “ barely  makes  a living.” 
Therefore,  it  came  to  be  recognized  at  the  very  beginning 
of  civilization,  that  the  man  who  killed  other  men  was  a 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 


79 


foe  to  those  conditions  which  the  average  man  had  to 
seek  in  order  to  exist  — to  peace  and  order  and  quiet  and 
security.  Out  of  this  grew  the  doctrine  that  it  was  im- 
moral to  commit  murder,  and  as  soon  as  mankind  became 
imaginative  enough  to  invent  personal  gods,  this  doctrine* 
was  put  into  their  mouths  and  so  attained  the  force  and 
authority  of  divine  wisdom./ _In  some  such  manner,  said 
Nietzsche,  the  majority  of  our  present  moral  concepts 
were  evolved.  At  the  start  they  were  mere  echoes  of  a 
protest  against  actions  which  made  existence  difficult  and 
so  outraged  and  opposed  the  will  to  liveTJ 

As  a rule,  said  Nietzsche,  such  familiar  protests  as  that 
against  murder,  which  laid  down  the  maxim  that  the 
community  had  rights  superior  to  those  of  the  individual, 
were  voiced  by  the  weak,  who  found  it  difficult  to  protect 
themselves,  as  individuals,  against  the  strong.  One 
strong  man,  perhaps,  was  more  than  a match,  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  for  ten  weak  men  and  so  the  latter 
were  at  a disadvantage.  But  fortunately  for  them  they 
could  overcome  this  by  combination,  for  they  were  always 
in  an  overwhelming  majority,  numerically,  and  in  conse- 
quence they  were  stronger,  taken  together,  than  the  pha- 
lanx of  the  strong.  Thus  it  gradually  became  possible  for 
them  to  enforce  the  rules  that  they  laid  down  for  their 
own  protection  — which  rules  always  operated  against 
the  wishes  — and,  as  an  obvious  corollary,  against  the 
best  interests  of  — the  strong.1  When  the  time  arrived 

1 The  fact  that  the  state  is  founded,  not  upon  a mysterious  “social 
impulse  ” in  man,  but  upon  each  individual’s  regard  for  his  own  interest, 
was  first  pointed  out  by  Thomas  Hobbes  (1588-1679),  in  his  argument 
against  Aristotle  and  Grotius. 


8o 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


for  fashioning  religious  systems,  these  rules  were  ci  -edited 
to  the  gods,  and  again  the  weak  triumphed.  Thus  the 
desire  of  the  weak  among  the  world’s  early  races  of  men, 
to  protect  their  crops  and  wives  against  the  forays  of  the 
strong,  by  general  laws  and  divine  decrees  instead  of  by 
each  man  fighting  for  his  own,  has  come  down  to  us  in  the 
form  of  the  Christian  commandments:  “ Thou  shalt  not 
steal.  . . . Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor’s  house. 

. . . Thou  shalt  not  covet  thy  neighbor’s  wife,  nor  his 
manservant,  nor  his  maidservant,  nor  his  ox,  nor  his  ass, 
nor  anything  that  is  thy  neighbor’s.” 

Nietzsche  shows  that  the  device  of  putting  man-made 
rules  of  morality  into  the  mouths  of  the  gods  — a device 
practiced  by  every  nation  in  history  — has  vastly  increased 
the  respectability  and  force  of  all  moral  ideas.  This  is 
well  exhibited  by  the  fact  that,  even  today  and  among 
thinking  men,  offenses  which  happen  to  be  included  in 
the  scope  of  the  Ten  Commandments,  either  actually  or 
by  interpretation,  are  regarded  with  a horror  which 
seldom,  if  ever,  attaches  to  offenses  obviously  defined  and 
delimited  by  merely  human  agencies.  Thus,  theft  is 
everywhere  looked  upon  as  dishonorable,  but  cheating 
at  elections,  which  is  fully  as  dangerous  to  the  body 
politic,  is  commonly  pardoned  by  public  opinion  as  a 
normal  consequence  of  enthusiasm,  and  in  some  quarters 
is  even  regarded  as  an  evidence  of  courage,  not  to  say  of 
a high  and  noble  sense  of  gratitude  and  honor. 

Nietzsche  does  not  deny  that  human  beings  have  a rght 
to  construct  moral  codes  for  themselves,  and  neither  does 
he  deny  that  they  are  justified,  from  their  immediate  stai  d- 
point,  at  least,  in  giving  these  codes  the  authority  and  foi  :e 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 


81 


of  divine  commands.  But  he  points  out  that  this  procedure 
is  bound  to  cause  trouble  in  the  long  run,  for  the  reason 
that  divine  commands  are  fixed  and  invariable,  and  do 
not  change  as  fast  as  the  instincts  and  needs  of  the  race. 
Suppose,  for  instance,  that  all  acts  of  Parliament  and 
Congress  were  declared  to  be  the  will  of  God,  and  that, 
as  a natural  consequence,  the  power  to  repeal  or  modify 
them  were  abandoned.  It  is  apparent  that  the  world 
would  outgrow  them  as  fast  as  it  does  today,  but  it  is  also 
apparent  that  the  notion  that  they  were  infallible  would 
paralyze  and  block  all  efforts,  by  atheistic  reformers,  to 
overturn  or  amend  them.  As  a result,  the  British  and 
American  people  would  be  compelled  to  live  in  obedience 
to  rules  which,  on  their  very  face,  would  often  seem 
illogical  and  absurd. 

Yet  the  same  thing  happens  to  notions  of  morality. 
They  are  devised,  at  the  start,  as  measures  of  expediency, 
and  then  given  divine  sanction  in  order  to  lend  them 
authority.  In  the  course  of  time,  perhaps,  the  race  out- 
grows them,  but  none  the  less,  they  continue  in  force  — 
at  least  so  long  as  the  old  gods  are  worshipped.  Thus 
human  laws  become  divine  — and  inhuman.  Thus  moral- 
ity itself  becomes  immoral.  Thus  the  old  instinct  whereby 
society  differentiates  between  good  things  and  bad,  grows 
muddled  and  uncertain,  and  the  fundamental  purpose  of 
morality  — that  of  producing  a workable  scheme  of 
living  — is  defeated.  Thereafter  it  is  next  to  impossible 
to  distinguish  between  the  laws  that  are  still  useful  and 
those  that  have  outlived  their  usefulness,  and  the  man 
who  makes  the  attempt  — the  philosopher  who  endeavors 
to  show  humanity  how  it  is  condemning  as  bad  a thing 


82 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


that,  in  itself,  is  now  good,  or  exalting  as  good  a thing  that, 
for  all  its  former  goodness,  is  now  bad  — this  man  is 
damned  as  a heretic  and  anarchist,  and  according  as 
fortune  serves  him,  is  burned  at  the  stake  or  merely  read 
out  of  the  human  race.1 

Nietzsche  found  that  all  existing  moral  ideas  might  be 
divided  into  two  broad  classes,  corresponding  to  the  two 
broad  varieties  of  human  beings  — the  masters  and  the 
slaves.  Every  man  is  either  a master  or  a slave,  and  the 
same  is  true  of  every  race.  Either  it  rules  some  other 
race  or  it  is  itself  ruled  by  some  other  race.  It  is  impossible 
to  think  of  a man  or  of  a people  as  being  utterly  isdated, 
and  even  were  this  last  possible,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
community  would  be  divided  into  those  who  ruled  and 
those  who  obeyed.  The  masters  are  strong  and  are  capable 
of  doing  as  they  please;  the  slaves  are  weak  and  must 
obtain  whatever  rights  they  crave  by  deceiving,  cajoling 
or  collectively  intimidating  their  masters.  Now,  since  all 
moral  codes,  as  we  have  seen,  are  merely  collections  of 
the  rules  laid  down  by  some  definite  group  of  human  beings 
for  their  comfort  and  protection,  it  is  evident  u,2t  the 
morality  of  the  master  class  has  for  its  main  object  the 
preservation  of  the  authority  and  kingship  of  that  class, 
while  the  morality  of  the  slave  class  seeks  to  make  slavery 
as  bearable  as  possible  and  to  exalt  and  dignify  those 
things  in  which  the  slave  can  hope  to  become  the  appar- 
ent equal  or  superior  of  his  master. 

The  civilization  which  existed  in  Europe  before  the 

1 The  risk  of  such  idol-smashing  Is  well  set  forth  at  length  by  G. 
Bernard  Shaw  in  the  preface  to  “The  Quintessence  of  Ibsenism;” 
London,  1904. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 


83 


dawn  of  Christianity  was  a culture  based  upon  master- 
morality,  and  so  we  find  that  the  theologians  and  moralists 
of  those  days  esteemed  a certain  action  as  right  only  when 
it  plainly  subserved  the  best  interests  of  strong,  resource- 
ful men.  The  ideal  man  of  that  time  was  not  a meek  and 
lowly  sufferer,  bearing  his  cross  uncomplainingly,  but  an 
alert,  proud  and  combative  being  who  knew  his  rights 
and  dared  maintain  them.  In  consequence  we  find  that 
in  many  ancient  languages,  the  words  “ good  ” and 
“ aristocratic  ” were  synonymous.  Whatever  served  to 
make  a man  a nobleman  — cunning,  wealth,  physical 
strength,  eagerness  to  resent  and  punish  injuries  — was 
considered  virtuous,  praiseworthy  and  moral,1  and  on 
the  other  hand,  whatever  tended  to  make  a man  sink  to 
the  level  of  the  great  masses  — humility,  lack  of  ambition, 
modest  desires,  lavish  liberality  and  a spirit  of  ready  for- 
giveness — was  regarded  as  immoral  and  wrong. 

“ Among  these  master  races,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ the 
antithesis  ‘ good  and  bad  ’ signified  practically  the  same 
as  ‘noble  and  contemptible!’  jThe  despised  ones  were 
the  cowards,  the  timid,  the  insignificant,  the  self-abasing 
' the  dog-species  of  tnen  who  allowed  themselves  to  be 
misused  — the  flatterers  and,  above  all,  the  liars.  It  is  a 
fundamental  belief  of  all  true  aristocrats  that  the  common 
people  are  deceitful.  ‘ We  true  ones,’  the  ancient  Greek 
nobles  called  themselves. 

* Henry  Bradley,  in  a lecture  at  the  London  Institution,  in  Jan 
19 showed  that  this  was  true  of  the  ancient  Britons,  as  is  demon- 
strated by  their  liking  for  bestowing  such  names  as  Wolf  and  Bear  upon 
themselves.  It  was  true,  also,  of  the  North  American  Indians  and  of 
all  primitive  races  conscious  of  their  efficiency. 


84 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


“It  is  obvious  that  the  designations  of  moral  worth 
were  at  first  applied  to  individual  men,  and  not  to  actions 
or  ideas  in  the  abstract.  The  master  type  of  man  regards 
himself  as  a sufficient  judge  of  worth.  He  does  not  seek 
approval : his  own  feelings  determine  his  conduct.  ‘ What 
is  injurious  to  me,’  he  reasons,  ‘ is  injurious  in  itself.’ 
This  type  of  man  honors  whatever  qualities  he  recognizes 
in  himself : his  morality  is  self-glorification.  He  has  a 
Heeling  of  plentitude  and  power  and  the  happiness  of  high 
tension.  He  helps  the  unfortunate,  perhaps,  but  it  is  not 
out  of  sympathy.  The  impulse,  when  it  comes  at  all,  rises 
out  of  his  superabundance  of  power  — his  thirst  to  func- 
tion. He  honors  his  own  power,  and  he  knows  how  to 
keep  it  in  hand.  He  joyfully  exercises  strictness  and 
severity  over  himself  and  he  reverences  all  that  is  strict 
and  severe.  ‘ Wotan  has  put  a hard  heart  in  my  breast,’ 
says  an  old  Scandinavian  saga.  There  could  be  no  better 
expression  of  the  spirit  of  a proud  viking.  . . . 

“ The  morality  of  the  master  class  is  irritating  to  the 
taste  of  the  present  day  because  of  its  fundamental,  prin- 
ciple that  a man  has  obligations  only  to  his  equals;  that 
he  may  act  to  all  of  lower  rank  and  to  all  that  are  foreign 
as  he  pleases.  . . . The  man  of  the  master  class  has  a 
capacity  for  prolonged  gratitude  and  prolonged  revenge, 
but  it  is  only  among  his  equals.  He  has,  too,  great  re- 
sourcefulness in  retaliation ; great  capacity  for  friendship, 
and  a strong  need  for  enemies,  that  there  may  be  an  outlet 
for  his  envy,  quarrelsomeness  and  arrogance,  and  that  by 
spending  these  passions  in  this  manner,  he  may  be  gentle 
towards  his  friends.”  1 

1 “ Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Bose”  § 260. 


) 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY 


85 


By  this  ancient  herrenmoral,  or  master-morality, 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  would  have  been  esteemed  a god  and 
the  Man  of  Sorrows  an  enemy  to  society.  It  was  the  eth- 
ical scheme,  indeed,  of  peoples  who  were  sure  of  themselves 
and  who  had  no  need  to  make  terms  with  rivals  or  to  seek 
the  good  will  or  forbearance  of  anyone.  In  its  light,  such 
things  as  mercy  and  charity  seemed  pernicious  and  im- 
moral, because  they  meant  a transfer  of  power  from  strong 
men,  whose  proper  business  it  was  to  grow  stronger  and 
stronger,  to  weak  men,  whose  proper  business  it  was  to  serve 
the  strong.  In  a word,  this  master-morality  was  the  moral- 
ity of  peoples  who  knew,  by  experience,  that  it  was  pleasant 
to  rule  and  be  strong.  They  knew  that  the  nobleman 
was  to  be  envied  and  the  slave  to  be  despised,  and  so  they 
came  to  believe  that  everything  which  helped  to  make  a man 
noble  was  good  and  everything  which  helped  to  make 
him  a slave  was  evil.  The  idea  of  nobility  and  the  idea 
of  good  were  expressed  by  the  same  word,  and  this  verbal 
identity  survives  in  the  English  language  today,  despite 
the  fact  that  our  present  system  of  morality,  as  we  shall 
see,  differs  vastly  from  that  of  the  ancient  master 
races. 

In  opposition  to  this  master-morality  of  the  strong, 
healthy  nations  there  was  the  sklavmoral,  or  slave-morality, 
of  the  weak  nations.  The  Jews  of  the  four  or  five  centuries 
preceding  the  birth  of  Christ  belonged  to  the  latter  class. 
Compared  to  the  races  around  them,  they  were  weak  and 
helpless.  It  was  out  of  the  question  for  them  to  conquer 
the  Greeks  or  Romans  and  it  was  equally  impossible  for 
them  to  force  their  laws,  their  customs  or  their  religion 
upon  their  neighbors  on  other  sides.  They  were,  indeed, 


86 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


in  the  position  of  an  army  surrounded  by  a horde  of 
irresistible  enemies.  The  general  of  such  an  army,  with  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  strong  within  him,  does  not 
attempt  to  cut  his  way  out.  Instead  he  tries  to  make  the 
best  terms  he  can,  and  if  the  leader  of  the  enemy  insists 
upon  making  him  and  his  vanquished  force  prisoners,  he 
endeavors  to  obtain  concessions  which  will  make  this 
imprisonment  as  bearable  as  possible.  The  strong  man’s 
object  is  to  take  as  much  as  he  can  from  his  victim;  the 
weak  man’s  is  to  save  as  much  as  he  can  from  his 
conqueror. 

The  fruit  of  this  yearning  of  weak  nations  to  preserve 
as  much  of  their  national  unity  as  possible  is  the  thing 
Nietzsche  calls  slave-morality.  Its  first  and  foremost 
purpose  is  to  discourage,  and  if  possible,  blot  out,  all  those 
traits  and  actions  which  are  apt  to  excite  the  ire,  the  envy, 
or  the  cupidity  of  the  menacing  enemies  round  about. 
Revenge,  pride  and  ambition  are  condemned  as  evils. 
Humility,  forgiveness,  contentment  and  resignation  are 
esteemed  virtues.  The  moral  man  is  the  man  who  has 
lost  all  desire  to  triumph  and  exult  over  his  fellow-men  — 
the  man  of  mercy,  of  charity,  of  self-sacrifice. 

“ The  impotence  which  does  not  retaliate  for  injuries,” 
says  Nietzsche,  “is  falsified  into  ‘goodness;’  timorous 
abjectness  becomes  ‘humility;’  subjection  to  those  one 
hates  is  called  ‘ obedience,’  and  the  one  who  desires  and 
commands  this  impotence,  abjectness  and  subjection  is 
called  God.  The  inoffensiveness  of  the  weak,  their 
cowardice  (of  which  they  have  ample  store) ; their  stand- 
ing at  the  door,  their  unavoidable  time-serving  and  waiting 
— all  these  things  get  good  names.  The  inability  to  get 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORALITY  87 


revenge  is  translated  into  an  unwillingness  to  get  revenge, 
and  becomes  forgiveness,  a virtue. 

“ They  are  wretched  — these  mutterers  and  forgers  — 
but  they  say  that  their  wretchedness  is  of  God’s  choosing 
and  even  call  it  a distinction  that  he  confers  upon  them. 
The  dogs  which  are  liked  best,  they  say,  are  beaten  most. 
Their  wretchedness  is  a test,  a preparation,  a schooling  — - 
something  which  will  be  paid  for,  one  day,  in  happiness. 
They  call  that  ‘ bliss.’  ” 1 

By  the  laws  of  this  slave-morality  the  immoral  man  is 
he  who  seeks  power  and  eminence  and  riches  — the 
millionaire,  the  robber,  the  fighter,  the  schemer.  The 
act  of  acquiring  property  by  conquest  — which  is  looked 
upon  as  a matter  of  course  by  master-morality  — becomes 
a crime  and  is  called  theft.  The  act  of  mating  in  obedience 
to  natural  impulses,  without  considering  the  desire  of 
others,  becomes  adultery ; the  quite  natural  act  of  destroy- 
ing one’s  enemies  becomes  murder. 

1 “ Zur  Gencologie  der  Moral”  I,  § 14. 


Ill 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


Despite  the  divine  authority  which  gives  permanence 
to  all  moral  codes,  this  permanence  is  constantly  opposed 
by  the  changing  conditions  of  existence,  and  very  often 
the  opposition  is  successful.  The  slave-morality  of  the 
ancient  Jews  has  come  down  to  us,  with  its  outlines  little 
changed,  as  ideal  Christianity,  but  such  tenacious  per- 
sistence of  a moral  scheme  is  comparatively  rare.  As  a 
general  rule,  in  truth,  races  change  their  gods  very  much 
oftener  than  we  have  changed  ours,  and  have  less  faith 
than  we  in  the  independence  of  intelligence.  In  conse- 
quence they  constantly  revamp  and  modify  their  moral 
concepts.  The  same  process  of  evolution  affects  even  our 
own  code,  despite  the  extraordinary  tendency  to  perma- 
nence just  noted.  Our  scheme  of  things,  in  its  fundaA 
mentals,  has  persisted  for  2,500  years,  but  in  matters  of  j 
detail  it  is  constantly  in  a state  of  flux.  We  still  call  our-  j 
selves  Christians,  but  we  have  evolved  many  moral  ideas  I 
that  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  scriptures  and  we  have/ 
sometimes  denied  others  that  are  plainly  there.  Indeed j 
as  will  be  shown  later  on,  the  beatitudes  would  have  wiped 
us  from  the  face  of  the  earth  centuries  ago  had  not  our 
forefathers  devised  means  of  circumventing  them  without 

88 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


89 


openly  questioning  them.  Our  progress  has  been  made, 
not  as  a result  of  our  moral  code,  but  as  a result  of  our 
success  in  dodging  its  inevitable  blight. 

All  morality,  in  fact,  is  colored  and  modified  by  oppor- 
tunism, even  when  its  basic  principles  are  held  sacred 
and  kept  more  or  less  intact.  The  thing  that  is  a sin  in 
/ one  age  becomes  a virtue  in  the  next.  The  ancient  Per- 
^ sians,  who  were  Zoroastrians,  regarded  murder  and 
suicide,  under  any  circumstances,  as  crimes.  The  modern 
Persians,  who  are  Mohammedans,  think  that  ferocity 
and  foolhardiness  are  virtues.  The  ancient  Japanese,  to 
whom  the  state  appeared  more  important  than  the  man, 
threw  themselves  joyously  upon  the  spears  of  the  state’s 
enemies.  The  modern  Japanese,  who  are  fledgling 
individualists,  armor  their  ships  with  nickel  steel  and  fight 
on  land  from  behind  bastions  of  earth  and  masonry. 
And  in  the  same  way  the  moral  ideas  that  have  grown  out 
of  Christianity,  and  even  some  of  its  important  original 
doctrines,  are  being  constantly  modified  and  revised, 
despite  the  persistence  of  the  fundamental  notion  of  self- 
sacrifice  at  the  bottom  of  them.  In  Dr.  Andrew  D.  White’s 
monumental  treatise  “ On  the  Warfare  of  Science  with 
Theology  in  Christendom  ” there  are  ten  thousand  proofs 
of  it.  Things  that  were  crimes  in  the  middle  ages  are  quite 
respectable  at  present.  Actions  that  are  punishable  by 
excommunication  and  ostracism  in  Catholic  Spain  today, 
are  sufficient  to  make  a man  honorable  in  freethinking 
England.  In  France,  where  the  church  once  stood  above 
the  king,  it  is  now  stripped  of  all  rights  not  inherent  in  the 
most  inconsequential  social  club.  In  Germany  it  is  a 
penal  offense  to  poke  fun  at  the  head  of  the  state ; in  the 


9o 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


United  States  it  is  looked  upon  by  many  as  an  evidence 
of  independence  and  patriotism.  In  some  of  the  American 
states  a violation  of  the  seventh  commandment,  in  any 
form,  is  a felony ; in  Maryland,  it  is,  in  one  form,  a mere 
misdemeanor,  and  another  form,  no  crime  at  all. 

“ Many  lands  did  I see,”  says  Zarathustra,  “ and  many 
peoples,  and  so  I discovered  the  good  and  bad  of  many 
peoples.  . . . Much  that  was  regarded  as  good  by  one 
people  was  held  in  scorn  and  contempt  by  another.  I 
found  many  things  called  bad  here  and  adorned  with 
purple  honors  there.  ...  A catalogue  of  blessings  is 
posted  up  for  every  people.  Lo ! it  is  the  catalogue  of 
their  triumphs  — the  voice  of  their  will  to  power ! . . . 
Whatever  enables  them  to  rule  and  conquer  and  dazzle, 
to  the  dismay  and  envy  of  their  neighbors,  is  regarded  by 
them  as  the  summit,  the  head,  the  standard  of  all  things. 
A . . Verily,  men  have  made  for  themselves  all  their 
good  and  bad.  Verily  they  did  not  find  it  so:  it  did  not 
come  to  them  as  a voice  from  heaven.  ...  It  is  only 
through  valuing  that  there  comes  value.”  1 

To  proceed  from  the  concrete  to  the  general,  and  to 
risk  a repetition,  it  is  evident  that  all  morality,  as  Niet- 
i zsche  pointed  out,  is  nothing  more  than  an  expression  of 
expediency. 2 A thing  is  called  wrong  solely  because  a 
I definite  group  of  people,  at  some  specific  stage  of  their 
Icareer,  have  found  it  injurious  to  them.  The  fact  that 

* “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra  ” I. 

2 “ The  word  mos,  from  signifying  what  is  customary,  has  come  to 
signify  what  is  right.”  Sir  Wm.  Markby  : “ Elements  of  Law  Considered 
with  Reference  to  General  Principles  of  Jurisprudence:”  pp.  118,  5th 
ed.,  London,  1896. 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


9* 


f, 


they  have  discovered  grounds  for  condemning  it  in  some 
pronunciamento  of  their  god  signifies  nothing,  for  the 
reason  that  the  god  of  a people  is  never  anything  more 
than  a reflection  of  their  ideas  for  the  time  being.  As 
Prof.  Otto  Pfleiderer  has  shown,1  Jesus  Christ  was  a 
product  of  his  age,  mentally  and  spiritually  as  well  as 
physically.  Had  there  been  no  Jewish  theology  before 
him,  he  could  not  have  sought  or  obtained  recognition  as 
a messiah,  and  the  doctrines  that  he  expressed  — had  he 
ever  expressed  them  at  all  — would  have  fallen  upon 
unheeding  and  uncomprehending  ears. 

Therefore  it  is  plain  that  the  Ten  Commandments  are 
no  more  immortal  and  immutable,  in  the  last  analysis, 
than  the  acts  of  Parliament.  They  have  lasted  longer,  it 
is  true,  and  they  will  probably  continue  in  force  for  many 
years,  but  this  permanence  is  only  relative.  Funda- 
j mentally  they  are  merely  expressions  of  expedience,  like 
the  rules  of  some  great  game,  and  it  is  easily  conceivable 
that  there  may  arise  upon  the  earth,  at  some  future  day, 
a race  to  whom  they  will  appear  injurious,  unreasonable 
and  utterly  immoral.  “ The  time  may  come,  indeed,  when 
we  will  prefer  the  Memorabilia  of  Socrates  to  the  Bible.”  2 
Admitting  this,  we  must  admit  the  inevitable  corollary 
that  morality  in  the  absolute  sense  has  nothing  to  do  with 
truth,  and  that  it  is,  in  fact,  truth’s  exact  antithesis. 
Absolute  truth  necessarily  implies  eternal  truth.  The 
statement  that  a man  and  a woman  are  unlike  was  true 
on  the  day  the  first  man  and  woman  walked  the  earth 


1 In  his  masterly  treatise,  “ Christian  Origins,”  tr.  by  David  A. 
Huebsch:  New  York,  1906. 

* “ Menschliches  allzu  Menschliches  ” III. 


92 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


and  it  will  be  true  so  long  as  there  are  men  and  women. 
Such  a statement  approaches  very  near  our  ideal  of  an 
absolute  truth.  But  the  theory  that  humility  is  a virtue 
is  not  an  absolute  truth,  for  while  it  was  undoubtedly 
true  in  ancient  Judea,  it  was  not  true  in  ancient  Greece 
and  is  debatable,  to  say  the  least,  in  modern  Europe  and 
America.  The  Western  Catholic  Church,  despite  its 
extraordinarily  successful  efforts  at  permanence,  has 
given  us  innumerable  proofs  that  laws,  in  the  long  run, 
always  turn  upon  themselves.  The  popes  were  infallible 
when  they  held  that  the  earth  was  flat  and  they  were 
infallible  when  they  decided  that  it  was  round  — and  so 
we  reach  a palpable  absurdity.  Therefore,  we  may  lay 
it  down  as  an  axiom  that  morality,  in  itself,  is  the  enemy 
of  truth,  and  that,  for  at  least  half  of  the  time,  by  the 
mathematical  doctrine  of  probabilities,  it  is  necessarily 
^untrue. 

If  this  is  so,  why  should  any  man  bother  about  moral 
rules  and  regulations  ? Why  should  any  man  conform  to 
laws  formulated  by  a people  whose  outlook  on  the  universe 
probably  differed  diametrically  from  his  own  ? Why  should 
any  man  obey  a regulation  which  is  denounced,  by  his 
common-sense,  as  a hodge-podge  of  absurdities,  and  why 
(should  he  model  his  whole  life  upon  ideals  invented  to 
serve  the  temporary  needs  of  a forgotten  race  of  some 
jast  age?  These  questions  Nietzsche  asked  himself. 
/'  His  conclusion  was  a complete  rejection  of  all  fixed  codes 
\ of  morality,  and  with  them  of  all  gods,  messiahs,  prophets, 
Vgaints,  popes,  bishops,  priests,  and  rulers. 

The  proper  thing  for  a man  to  do,  he  decided,  was  to 
formulate  his  own  morality  as  he  progressed  from  lower 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


93 


to  higher  things.  He  should  reject  the  old  conceptions  of 
good  and  evil  and  substitute  for  them  the  human  valua- 
tions, good  and  bad.  In  a word,  he  should  put  behind 
him  the  morality  invented  by  some  dead  race  to  make 
its  own  progress  easy  and  pleasant,  and  credited  to  some 
man-made  god  to  give  it  authority,  and  put  in  the  place 
of  this  a workable  personal  morality  based  upon  his 
own  power  of  distinguishii]£_between^thn^  things  which- 
benefit  hinuand  the  things  which  injure,  him.  He  should 
(to  make  the  idea  clearer)  judge  a given  action  solely  by 
its  effect  upon  his  own  welfare ; his  own  desire  or  will  to 
live;  and  that  of  his  children  after  him.  All  notions  of 
sin  and  virtue  should  be  banished  from  his  mind.  He 
should  weigh  everything  in  the  scales  of  individual  expe- 
dience. 

Such  a frank  wielding  of  a razor-edged  sword  in  the 
struggle  for  existence  is  frowned  upon  by  our  Jewish 
slave-morality.  We  are  taught  to  believe  that  the  only 
true  happiness  lies  in  self-effacement ; that  it  is  wrong  to 
profit  by  the  misfortune  or  weakness  of  another.  But 
against  this  Nietzsche  brings  the  undeniable  answer  that 
all  life,  no  matter  how  much  we  idealize  it,  is,  at  bottom, 
nothing  more  or  less  than  exploitation.  The  gain  of  one 
man  is  inevitably  the  loss  of  some  other  man.  That 
the  emperor  may  die  of  a surfeit  the  peasant  must  die  of 
starvation.  Among  human  beings,  as  well  as  among  the 
bacilli  in  the  hanging  drop  and  the  Hons  "n  the  jungle, 
there  is  ever  in  progress  this  ancient  str.ggle  for  exist- 
ence. It  is  waged  decently,  perhaps,  but  it  is  none  the  less 
savage  and  unmerciful,  and  the  devil  always  takes  the 
hindmost. 


94 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


“ Life,”  says  Nietzsche,  “is  essentially  the  appropriation, 
the  injury,  the  vanquishing  of  the  unadapted  and  weak. 
Its  object  is  to  obtrude  its  own  forms  and  insure  its  own 
unobstructed  functioning.  Even  an  organization  whose 
individuals  forbear  in  their  dealings  with  one  another  (a 
healthy  aristocracy,  for  example)  must,  if  it  would  live 
and  not  die,  act  hostilely  toward  all  other  organizations. 
It  must  endeavor  to  gain  ground,  to  obtain  advantages,  to 
acquire  ascendancy.  And  this  is  not  because  it  is  immoral, 
but  because  it  lives,  and  all  life  is  will  to  power.”  1 

Nietzsche  argues  from  this  that  it  is  absurd  to  put  the 
stigma  of  evil  upon  the  mere  symptoms  of  the  great 
'-struggle.  “ In  itself,”  he  says,  “ an  act  of  injury,  violation, 
exploitation  or  annihilation  cannot  be  wrong,  for  life 
operates,  essentially  and  fundamentally,  by  injuring, 
violating,  exploiting  and  annihilating,  and  cannot  even 
ij^e  conceived  of  out  of  this  character.  One  must  admit, 
indeed,  that,  from  the  highest  biological  standpoint,  con- 
ditions under  which  the  so-called  rights  of  others  are 
recognized  must  ever  be  regarded  as  exceptional  con- 
ditions—that  is  to  say,  as  parti  ay  restrictions  of  the  in- 
stinctive power-seeking  will-to-live  oFEhe  individual,  made 
p satisfy  the  more  powerful  will-to-live  of  the  mass. 
Thus  small  units  of  power  are  sacrificed  to  create  large 
units  of  power.  To  regard  the  rights  of  others  as  being 
inherent  in  them,  and  not  as  mere  compromises  for  the 
benefit  of  the  mass-unit,  would  be  to  enunciate  a prin- 
ciple hostile  to  life  itself.”  2 

Nietzsche  holds  that  the  rights  of  an  individual  may 


1 “ Jcnseits  von  Gut  und  Bose,”  § 259. 

2 “ Zur  Geneologie  der  Moral  II,  § II. 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


95 


be  divided  into  two  classes : those  things  he  is  able  to 
do  despite  the  opposition  of  his  fellow  men,  and  those 
things  he  is  enabled  to  do  by  the  grace  and  permission  of 
his  fellow  men.  The  second  class  of  rights  may  be  divided 
again  into  two  groups : those  granted  through  fear  and 
foresight,  and  those  granted  as  free  gifts.  But  how  do 
fear  and  foresight  operate  to  make  one  man  concede  rights 
to  another  man?  It  is  easy  enough  to  discern  two  ways. 
In  the  first  place,  the  grantor  may  fear  the  risks  of  a 
combat  with  the  grantee,  and  so  give  him  what  he  wants 
without  a struggle.  In  the  second  place,  the  grantor, 
while  confident  of  his  ability  to  overcome  the  grantee,  may 
forbear  because  he  sees  in  the  struggle  a certain  diminu- 
tion of  strength  on  both  sides,  and  in  consequence,  an 
impaired  capacity  for  joining  forces  in  effective  opposition 
to  some  hostile  third  power. 

And  now  for  the  rights  obtained  under  the  second  head 
— by  bestowal  and  concession.  “ In  this  case,”  says 
Nietzsche,  “ one  man  or  race  has  enough  power,  and  more 
than  enough,  to  be  able  to  bestow  some  of  it  on  another 
man  or  race.”  1 The  king  appoints  one  subject  viceroy 
of  a province,  and  so  gives  him  almost  regal  power,  and 
makes  another  cup-bearer  and  so  gives  him  a perpetual 
right  to  bear  the  royal  cup.  When  the  power  of  the  grantee, 
through  his  inefficiency,  decreases,  the  grantor  either 
restores  it  to  him  or  takes  it  away  from  him  altogether. 
When  the  power  of  the  grantee,  on  the  contrary,  increases, 
the  grantor,  in  alarm,  commonly  seeks  to  undermine  it 
and  encroach  upon  it.  When  the  power  of  the  grantee 
remains  at  a level  for  a considerable  time,  his  rights  become 

1 “ Morgenrote"  § 112. 


96 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


“ vested  ” and  he  begins  to  believe  that  they  are  inherent 
in  him  — that  they  constitute  a gift  from  the  gods  and  are 
beyond  the  will  and  disposal  of  his  fellow  men.  As 
Nietzsche  points  out,  this  last  happens  comparatively 
seldom.  More  often,  the  grantor  himself  begins  to  lose 
power  and  so  comes  into  conflict  with  the  grantee,  and  not 
infrequently  they  exchange  places.  “National  rights,”  says 
Nietzsche,  “ demonstrate  this  fact  by  their  constant  lapse 
and  regenesis.”  1 

r Nietzsche  believed  that  a realization  of  all  this  would 
greatly  benefit  the  human  race,  by  ridding  it  of  some  of 
its  most  costly  delusions.  He  held  that  so  long  as  it  sought 
V^to  make  the  struggle  for  existence  a parlor  game,  with 
rules  laid  down  by  some  blundering  god  — - that  so  long 
as  it  regarded  its  ideas  of  morality,  its  aspirations  and  its 
hopes  as  notions  implanted  by  the  creator  in  the  mind  of 
Father  Adam  — that  so  long  as  it  insisted  upon  calling 
things  by  fanciful  names  and  upon  frowning  down  all 
effort  to  reach  the  ultimate  verities  — that  just  so  long  its 
progress  would  be  fitful  and  slow.  It  was  morality  that 
burned  the  books  of  the  ancient  sages,  and  morality  that 
halted  the  free  inquiry  of  the  Golden  Age  and  substituted 
for  it  the  credulous  imbecility  of  the  Age  of  Faith.  It  was 
a fixed  moral  code  and  a fixed  theology  which  robbed  the 
human  race  of  a thousand  years  by  wasting  them  upon 
alchemy,  heretic-burning,  witchcraft  and  sacerdotalism. 

Nietzsche  called  himself  an  immoralist.  He  believed 
V that  all  progress  depended  upon  the  truth  and  that  the 
\ truth  could  not  prevail  while  men  yet  enmeshed  themselves 
\in  a web  of  gratuitous  and  senseless  laws  fashioned  by 

1 “ Morgcnrate,"  § 112. 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


97 


^their  own  hands.  He  was  fond  of  picturing  the  ideal 
immoralist  as  “ a magnificent  blond  beast  ” — innocent 
of  “ virtue  ” and  “ sin  ” and  knowing  only  “ good  ” and 
“ bad.”  Instead  of  a god  to  guide  him,  with  command- 
ments and  the  fear  of  hell,  this  immoralist  would  have  his 
own  instincts  and  intelligence.  Instead  of  doing  a given 
thing  because  the  church  called  it  a virtue  or  the  current 
moral  code  required  it,  he  would  do  it  because  he  knew  that 
it  would  benefit  him  or  his  descendants  after  him.  Instead 
of  refraining  from  a given  action  because  the  church 
denounced  it  as  a sin  and  the  law  as  a crime,  he  would 
avoid  it  only  if  he  were  convinced  that  the  action  itself, 
or  its  consequences,  might  work  him  or  his  an  injury. 

Such  a man,  were  he  set  down  in  the  world  today,  would 
bear  an  outward  resemblance,  perhaps,  to  the  most  pious 
and  virtuous  of  his  fellow-citizens,  but  it  is  apparent  that 
^his  fife  would  have  more  of  truth  in  it  and  less  of  hypocrisy 
and  cant  and  pretense  than  theirs.  He  would  obey  the 
laws  of  the  land  frankly  and  solely  because  he  was  afraid 
of  incurring  their  penalties,  and  for  no  other  reason,  and 
he  would  not  try  to  delude  his  neighbors  and  himself  into 
believing  that  he  saw  anything  sacred  in  them.  He  would 
have  no  need  of  a god  to  teach  him  the  difference  between 
right  and  wrong  and  no  need  of  priests  to  remind  him 
of  this  god’s  teachings.  He  would  look  upon  the  woes 
and  ills  of  life  as  inevitable  and  necessary  results  of  fife’s 
conflict,  and  he  would  make  no  effort  to  read  into  theni 
the  wrath  of  a peevish  and  irrational  deity  at  his  own  or\ 
his  ancestors’  sins.  His  mind  would  be  absolutely  free  1 
of  thoughts  of  sin  and  hell,  and  in  consequence,  he  would  I 
be  vastly  happier  than  the  majority  of  persons  about  him.  j 


9» 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


All  in  all,  he  would  be  a powerful  influence  for  truth  in  his 
community,  and  as  such,  would  occupy  himself  with  the 
most  noble  and  sublime  task  possible  to  mere  human 
beings : the  overthrow  of  superstition  and  unreasoning 
faith,  with  their  long  train  of  fears,  horrors,  doubts,  frauds, 
injustice  and  suffering. 1 

Under  an  ideal  government  — which  Herbert  Spencer 
defines  as  a government  in  which  the  number  of  laws  has 
reached  an  irreducible  minimum  — such  a man  would 
prosper  a great  deal  more  than  the  priest-ridden,  creed- 
barnacled  masses  about  him.  In  a state  wherein  com- 
munistic society,  with  its  levelling  usages  and  customs, 
had  ceased  to  exist,  and  wherein  each  individual  of  the 
master  class  was  permitted  to  live  his  life  as  much  as 
possible  in  accordance  with  his  own  notions  of  good  and 
bad,  such  a man  would  stand  forth  from  the  herd  in  pro- 
portion as  his  instincts  were  more  nearly  healthy  and  in- 
fallible than  the  instincts  of  the  herd.  Ideal  anarchy, 
in  brief,  would  insure  the  success  of  those  men  who  were 
wisest  mentally  and  strongest  physically,  and  the  race 
would  make  rapid  progress. 

It  is  evident  that  the  communistic  and  socialistic  forms 
of  government  at  present  in  fashion  in  the  world  oppose 
such  a consummation  as  often  as  they  facilitate  it.  Civiliza- 
tion, as  we  know  it,  makes  more  paupers  than  millionaires, 

1 “It  is  my  experience,”  said  Thomas  H.  Huxley,  “ that,  aside  from 
a few  human  affections,  the  only  thing  that  gives  lasting  and  untainted 
pleasure  in  the  world,  is  the  pursuit  of  truth  and  the  destruction  of 
error.”  See  “ The  Life  and  Letters  of  T.  H.  Huxley,”  by  Leonard 
Huxley;  London,  1900. 

a “Read  the  suicide  tables  and  see  how  many  despairing  men,  hope- 
less of  keeping  their  homes  together,  pay  with  their  lives  the  toil  im- 


BEYOND  GOOD  AND  EVIL 


99 


and  more  cripples  than  Sandows.  Its  most  conspicuous 
products,  the  church  and  the  king,  stand  unalterably- 
opposed  to  all  progress.  Like  the  frog  of  the  fable,  which 
essayed  to  climb  out  of  a well,  it  slips  back  quite  as  often 
as  it  goes  ahead. 

And  for  these  reasons  Nietzsche  was  an  anarchist  — in 
the  true  meaning  of  that  much-bespattered  word  — just 
as  Herbert  Spencer  and  Arthur  Schopenhauer  were  anar- 
chists before  him. 


IV 


THE  SUPERMAN 

No  doubt  the  reader  who  has  followed  the  argument 
in  the  preceding  chapters  will  have  happened,  before  now, 
upon  the  thought  that  Nietzsche’s  chain  of  reasoning,  so 
far,  still  has  a gap  in  it.  We  have  seen  how  he  started  by 
investigating  Greek  art  in  the  light  of  the  Schopenhauerean 
philosophy,  how  this  led  him  to  look  into  morality,  how 
he  revealed  the  origin  of  morality  in  transitory  manifesta- 
tions of  the  will  to  power,  and  how  he  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  it  was  best  for  a man  to  reject  all  ready-made 
moral  ideas  and  to  so  order  his  life  that  his  every  action 
would  be  undertaken  with  some  notion  of  making  it  sub- 
serve his  own  welfare  or  that  of  his  children  or  children’s 
children.  But  a gap  remains  and  it  may  be  expressed  in 
the  question : How  is  a man  to  define  and  determine  his 
own  welfare  and  that  of  the  race  after  him  ? 

Here,  indeed,  our  dionysian  immoralist  is  confronted 
by  a very  serious  problem,  and  Nietzsche  himself  well 
understood  its  seriousness.  Unless  we  have  in  mind  some 
definite  ideal  of  happiness  and  some  definite  goal  of 
progress  we  had  better  sing  the  doxology  and  dismiss  our 
congregation.  Christianity  has  such  an  ideal  and  such  a 
goal.  The  one  is  a Christ-like  fife  on  earth  and  the  other 

ioo 


j, 

1/ 


THE  SUPERMAN 


ioi 


is  a place  at  the  right  hand  of  Jehovah  in  the  hereafter. 
Mohammedanism,  a tinsel  form  of  Christianity,  paints 
pictures  of  the  same  sort.  Buddhism  holds  out  the  tempt- 
ing bait  of  a race  set  free  from  the  thrall  of  earthly 
desires,  with  an  eternity  of  blissful  nothingness. 1 
The  other  oriental  faiths  lead  in  the  same  direction  and 
Schopenhauer,  in  his  philosophy,  laid  down  the  doctrine 
that  humanity  would  attain  perfect  happiness  only  when 
it  had  overcome  its  instinct  of  self-preservation  — that 
is  to  say,  when  it  had  ceased  to  desire  to  live.  Even  Chris- 
tian Science  — that  most  grotesque  child  of  credulous 
faith  and  incredible  denial  — offers  us  the  double  ideal 
of  a mortal  life  entirely  free  from  mortal  pain  and  a harp 
in  the  heavenly  band  for  all  eternity. 

What  had  Nietzsche  to  offer  in  place  of  these  things? 
By  what  standard  was  his  immoralist  to  separate  the 
good  — or  beneficial  — things  of  the  world  from  the  bad  — 
or  damaging  — things?  And  what  was  the  goal  that 
the  philosopher  had  in  mind  for  his  immoralist?  The 
answer  to  the  first  question  is  to  be  found  in  Nietzsche’s 
definition  of  the  terms  “ good  ” and  “ bad.”  “ All  that 
elevates  the  sense  of  power,  the  will  to  power,  and  power 
itself” — this  is  how  he  defined  “good.”  “All  that 
proceeds  from  weakness  ” — this  is  how  he  defined 
“ bad.”  Happiness,  he  held,  is  “ the  feeling  that  power 
increases — -that  resistance  is  being  overcome.”  “I 
preach  not  contentedness,”  he  said,  “but  more  power; 
not  peace,  but  war;  not  virtue,  but  efficiency.  The  weak 

1 “ Nirvana  is  a cessation  of  striving  for  individual  existence  ” — 
that  is,  after  death.  See  “ Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology,” 
vol.  II,  pp.  178  ; New  York,  1902. 


102 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


\ 


and  defective  must  go  to  the  wall : that  is  the  first  principle 
of  the  dionysian  charity.  And  we  must  help  them  to  go.”  1 
To  put  it  more  simply,  Nietzsche  offers  the  gospel  of 
prudent  and  intelligent  selfishness,  of  absolute  and  utter 
individualism.  “ One  must  learn,”  sang  Zarathustra, 
“ how  to  love  oneself,  with  a whole  and  hearty  love,  that 
one  may  find  fife  with  oneself  endurable,  and  not  go  gad- 
ding about.  This  gadding  about  is  familiar:  it  is  called 
‘ loving  one’s  neighbor.’  ” 2 His  ideal  was  an  aristocracy 
which  regarded  the  proletariat  merely  as  a conglomeration 
of  draft  animals  made  to  be  driven,  enslaved  and  exploited. 
“ A good  and  healthy  aristocracy,”  he  said,  “ must  ac- 
quiesce, with  a good  conscience,  in  the  sacrifice  of  a legion 
of  individuals,  who,  for  its  benefit,  must  be  reduced  to 
slaves  .and  tools.  The  masses  have  no  right  to  exist  on 
their  own  account : their  sole  excuse  for  living  lies  in  their 
usefulness  as  a sort  of  superstructure  or  scaffolding,  upon 
which  a more  select  race  of  beings  may  be  elevated.”  3 
Rejecting  all  permanent  rules  of  good  and  evil  and  all 
notions  of  brotherhood,  Nietzsche  held  that  the  aristo- 
cratic individualist  — and  it  was  to  the  aristocrat  only 
that  he  gave,  unreservedly,  the  name  of  human  being  — 
must  seek  every  possible  opportunity  to  increase  and 
exalt  his  own  sense  of  efficiency,  of  success,  of  mastery,  of 
power.  Whatever  tended  to  impair  him,  or  to  decrease 
his  efficiency,  was  bad.  Whatever  tended  to  increase  it  — 
at  no  matter  what  cost  to  others  — was  good.  There  must 
be  a complete  surrender  to  the  law  of  natural  selection  — 


1 “ Der  Antichrist § 2. 

2 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra III. 

3 “ Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Bose,”  § 258. 


THE  SUPERMAN 


103 


that  invariable  natural  law  which  ordains  that  the  fit  shall 
survive  and  the  unfit  shall  perish.  All  growth  must  occur 
at  the  top.  The  strong  must  grow  stronger,  and  that 
they  may  do  so,  they  must  waste  no  strength  in  the  vain 
task  of  trying  to  lift  up  the  weak. 

The  reader  may  interrupt  here  with  the  question  we 
encountered  at  the  start : how  is  the  dionysian  individualist 
to  know  whether  a given  action  will  benefit  him  or  injure 
him?  The  answer,  of  course,  lies  in  the  obvious  fact  that, 
in  every  healthy  man,  instinct  supplies  a very  reliable 
guide,  and  that,  when  instinct  fails  or  is  uncertain,  experi- 
ment must  solve  the  problem.  As  a general  thing,  nothing 
is  more  patent  than  the  feeling  of  power  — the  sense 
of  efficiency,  of  capacity,  of  mastery.  Every  man  is  con- 
stantly and  unconsciously  measuring  himself  with  his 
neighbors,  and  so  becoming  acutely  aware  of  those  things 
in  which  he  is  their  superior.  Let  two  men  clash  in  the 
stock  market  and  it  becomes  instantly  apparent  that  one 
is  richer,  or  more  resourceful  or  more  cunning  than  the 
other.  Let  two  men  run  after  an  omnibus  and  it  becomes 
instantly  apparent  that  one  is  swifter  than  the  other.  Let 
two  men  come  together  as  rivals  in  love,  war,  drinking 
or  holiness,  and  one  is  bound  to  feel  that  he  has  bested 
the  other.  Such  contests  are  infinite  in  variety  and  in 
number,  and  all  life,  in  fact,  is  made  up  of  them.  There- 
fore, it  is  plain  that  every  man  is  conscious  of  his  power, 
and  aware  of  it  when  this  power  is  successfully  exerted 
against  some  other  man.  In  such  exertions,  argues 
Nietzsche,  lies  happiness,  and  so  his  prescription  for 
happiness  consists  in  unrestrained  yielding  to  the  will  to 
power.  That  all  men  worth  discussing  so  yield,  despite 


104 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


the  moral  demand  for  humility,  is  so  plain  that  it  scarcely 
needs  statement.  It  is  the  desire  to  attain  and  manifest 
efficiency  and  superiority  which  makes  one  man  explore 
the  wilds  of  Africa  and  another  pile  up  vast  wealth  and 
another  write  books  of  philosophy  and  another  submit 
to  pain  and  mutilation  in  the  prize  ring.  It  is  this  yearn-  ^ 
ing  which  makes  men  take  chances  and  risk  their  lives 
and  limbs  for  glory.  Everybody  knows,  indeed,  that  in 
the  absence  of  such  a primordial  and  universal  emulation 
the  world  would  stand  still  and  the  race  would  die. 
Nietzsche  asks  nothing  more  than  that  the  fact  be  openly 
recognized  and  admitted;  that  every  man  yield  to  the 
yearning  unashamed,  without  hypocrisy  and  without 
wasteful  efforts  to  feed  and  satisfy  the  yearning  of  other 
men  at  the  expense  of  his  own. 

It  is  evident,  of  course,  that  the  feeling  of  superiority 
has  a complement  in  the  feeling  of  inferiority.  Every 
man,  in  other  words,  sees  himself,  in  respect  to  some 
talent  possessed  in  common  by  himself  and  a rival,  in  one 
of  three  ways : he  knows  that  he  is  superior,  he  knows  that 
he  is  inferior,  or  he  is  in  doubt.  In  the  first  case,  says 
Nietzsche,  the  thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  make  his  superiority 
still  greater  by  yielding  to  its  stimulation:  to  make  the 
gap  between  himself  and  his  rival  wider  and  wider.  In 
the  second  case,  the  thing  for  him  to  do  is  to  try  to  make 
the  gap  smaller : to  lift  himself  up  or  to  pull  his  rival  down 
until  they  are  equal  or  the  old  disproportion  is  reversed. 
In  the  third  case,  it  is  his  duty  to  plunge  into  a contest 
and  risk  his  all  upon  the  cast  of  the  die.  “ I do  not  exhort 
you  to  peace,”  says  Zarathustra,  “but  to  victory!”1 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra I. 


THE  SUPERMAN 


r°5 


.If  victory  comes  not,  let  it  be  defeat,  death  and  annihila- 
tion — but,  in  any  event,  let  there  be  a fair  fight.  Without 
this  constant  strife  — - this  constant  testing  — this  constant 
elimination  of  the  unfit  — there  can  be  no  progress.  “ As 
the  smaller  surrenders  himself  to  the  greater,  so  the 
greater  must  surrender  himself  to  the  will  to  power  and 
stake  fife  upon  the  issue.  It  is  the  mission  of  the  greatest 
to  run  risk  and  danger  — to  cast  dice  with  death.” 1 
Power,  in  a word,  is  never  infinite : it  is  always  becoming. 

Practically  and  in  plain  language,  what  does  all  this 
mean  ? Simply  that  Nietzsche  preaches  a mighty  crusade 
against  all  those  ethical  ideas  -which  teach  a man  to  sacrifice 
himself  for  the  theoretical  good  of  his  inferiors.  A culture  . 
which  tends  to  equalize,  he  says,  is  necessarily  a culture 
which  tends  to  rob  the  strong  and  so  drag  them  down, 
for  the  strong  cannot  give  of  their  strength  to  the  weak 
without  decreasing  their  store.  There  must  be  an  unend- 
ing effort  to  widen  the  gap;  there  must  be  a constant 
search  for  advantage,  an  infinite  alertness.  The  strong 
man  must  rid  himself  of  all  idea  that  it  is  disgraceful  to 
yield  to  his  acute  and  ever  present  yearning  for  still  more 
strength.  There  must  be  an  abandonment  of  the  old 
slave- morality  and  a trans valuation  of  moral  values.  The 
will  to  power  must  be  emancipated  from  the  bonds  of 
that  system  of  ethics  which  brands  it  with  infamy,  and  so 
makes  the  one  all-powerful  instinct  of  every  sentient 
creature  loathsome  and  abominable. 

It  is  only  the  under-dog,  he  says,  that  believes  in  equality. 

It  is  only  the  groveling  and  inefficient  mob  that  seeks  to 
reduce  all  humanity  to  one  dead  level,  for  it  is  only  the 

! “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra II, 


io6  FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 

mob  that  would  gain  by  such  leveling.  “ ‘ There  are  nc 
higher  men,’  says  the  crowd  in  the  market  place.  ‘ We 
are  all  equal;  man  is  man;  in  the  presence  of  God  ve 
are  all  equal ! ’ In  the  presence  of  God,  indeed  ! But  I 
tell  you  that  God  is  dead!”  So  thunders  Zarathustra. 1 
That  is  to  say,  our  idea  of  brotherhood  is  part  of  the  mob- 
morality  of  the  ancient  Jews,  who  evolved  it  out  of  their 
own  helplessness  and  credited  it  to  their  god.  We  have 
inherited  their  morality  with  their  god  and  so  we  find  it 
difficult  — in  the  mass  — to  rid  ourselves  of  their  point 
of  view.  Nietzsche  himself  rejected  utterly  the  Judaic 
god  and  he  believed  that  the  great  majority  of  intelligent 
men  of  his  time  were  of  his  mind.  That  he  was  not  far 
wrong  in  this  assumption  is  evident  to  everyone.  At  the 
present  time,  indeed,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  find  a sane 
man  in  all  the  world  who  believes  in  the  actual  existence 
of  the  deity  described  in  the  old  testament.  All  theology 
is  now  an  effort  to  explain  away  this  god.  Therefore, 
argues  Nietzsche,  it  is  useless  to  profess  an  insincere  con- 
currence in  a theistic  idea  at  which  our  common  sense 
revolts,  and  ridiculous  to  maintain  the  inviolability  of  an 
ethical  scheme  grounded  upon  this  idea. 

It  may  be  urged  here  that,  even  if  the  god  of  Judea  is 
dead,  the  idea  of  brotherhood  still  fives,  and  that,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  an  idea  inherent  in  the  nature  of  man, 
and  one  that  owes  nothing  to  the  rejected  supematurafism 
which  once  fortified  and  enforced  it.  That  is  to  say,  it 
may  be  argued  that  the  impulse  to  self-sacrifice  and  mutual 
help  is  itself  an  instinct.  The  answer  to  this  lies  in  the 
very  patent  fact  that  it  is  not.  Nothing,  indeed,  is  more 


1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra,"  IV, 


THE  SUPERMAN 


107 


apparent  than  the  essential  selfishness  of  man.  In  so  far 
as  they  are  able  to  defy  or  evade  the  moral  code  without 
shame  or  damage,  the  strong  always  exploit  the  weak. 
The  rich  man  puts  up  the  price  of  the  necessities  of  fife 
and  so  makes  himself  richer  and  the  poor  poorer.  The 
emperor  combats  democracy.  The  political  boss  opposes 
the  will  of  the  people  for  his  own  advantage.  The  inventor 
patents  his  inventions  and  so  increases  his  relative  superior- 
ity to  the  common  run  of  men.  The  ecclesiastic  leaves 
a small  parish  for  a larger  one  — - because  the  pay  is  better 
or  “ the  field  offers  ^ider  opportunities,”  i.  e.  gives  him 
a better  chance  to  “ save  souls  ” and  so  increases  his 
feeling  of  efficiency.  The  philanthropist  gives  away 
millions  because  the  giving  visualizes  and  makes  evident 
to  all  men  his  virtue  and  power.  It  is  ever  the  same  in 
this  weary  old  world : every  slave  would  be  a master  if 
he  could.  Therefore,  why  deny  it  ? Why  make  it  a crime 
to  do  what  every  man’s  instincts  prompt  him  to  do  ? Why 
call  it  a sin  to  do  what  every  man  does,  insofar  as  he  can  ? 
The  man  who  throws  away  his  money  or  cripples  himself 
with  drink,  or  turns  away  from  his  opportunities  — we 
call  him  a lunatic  or  a fool.  And  yet,  wherein  does  he 
differ  from  the  ideal  holy  man  of  our  slave-morality  — 
the  holy  man  who  tortures  himself,  neglects  his  body, 
starves  his  mind  and  reduces  himself  to  parasitism,  that 
the  weak,  the  useless  and  unfit  may  have,  through  his 
ministrations,  some  measure  of  ease?  Such  is  the  argu- 
ment of  the  dionysian  philosophy.  It  is  an  argument 
for  the  actual  facts  of  existence  — however  unrighteous 
and  ugly  those  facts  may  be. 

That  the  lifting  up  of  the  weak,  in  the  long  run,  is  an 


io8 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


unprofitable  and  useless  business  is  evident  on  very  brief 
reflection.  Philanthropy,  considered  largely,  is  inevitably 
a failure.  Now  and  then  we  may  transform  an  individual 
pauper  or  drunkard  into  a useful,  producing  citizen,  but 
this  happens  very  seldom.  Nothing  is  more  patent,  indeed, 
than  the  fact  that  charity  merely  converts  the  unfit  — who, 
in  the  course  of  nature,  would  soon  die  out  and  so  cease 
to  encumber  the  earth  — into  parasites  — who  live  on 
indefinitely,  a nuisance  and  a burden  to  their  betters. 
The  “ reformed  ” drunkard  always  goes  back  to  his  cups : 
drunkardness,  as  every  physician  knows,  is  as  essentially 
incurable  as  congenital  insanity.  And  it  is  the  same 
with  poverty.  We  may  help  a pauper  to  survive  by  giving 
him  food  and  drink,  but  we  cannot  thereby  make  an 
efficient  man  of  him  — we  cannot  rid  him  of  the  unfitness 
which  made  him  a pauper.  There  are,  of  course,  ex- 
ceptions to  this,  as  to  other  rules,  but  the  validity  of  the 
rule  itself  will  not  be  questioned  by  any  observant  man. 
It  goes  unquestioned,  indeed,  by  those  who  preach  the 
doctrine  of  charity  the  loudest.  They  know  it  would  be 
absurd  to  argue  that  helping  the  unfit  is  profitable  to 
the  race,  and  so  they  fall  back,  soon  or  late,  upon  the 
argument  that  charity  is  ordained  of  God  and  that  the 
impulse  to  it  is  implanted  in  every  decent  man.  Nietzsche 
flatly  denies  this.  Charity,  he  says,  is  a man-made  idea, 
with  which  the  gods  have  nothing  to  do.  Its  sole  effect 
is  to  maintain  the  useless  at  the  expense  of  the  strong.  In 
the  mass,  the  helped  can  never  hope  to  discharge  in  full 
their  debt  to  the  helpers.  The  result  upon  the  race  is 
thus  retrogression. 

And  now  for  our  second  question.  What  was  the  goal 


THE  SUPERMAN 


109 


Nietzsche  had  in  mind  for  his  immoralist?  What  was 
to  be  the  final  outcome  of  his  overturning  of  all  morality  ? 
Did  he  believe  the  human  race  would  progress  until  men 
became  gods  and  controlled  the  sun  and  stars  as  they 
now  control  the  flow  of  great  rivers  ? Or  did  he  believe  that 
the  end  of  it  all  would  be  annihilation  ? After  the  pub- 
lication of  Nietzsche’s  earlier  books,  with  their  ruthless 
tearing  down  of  the  old  morality,  these  questions  were 
asked  by  critics  innumerable  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe. 
The  philosopher  was  laughed  at  as  a crazy  iconoclast 
who  destroyed  without  rebuilding.  He  was  called  a 
visionary  and  a lunatic,  and  it  was  reported  and  believed 
that  he  had  no  answer:  that  his  philosophy  was  doomed 
to  bear  itself  to  the  earth,  like  an  arch  without  a keystone. 
But  in  April,  1883,  he  began  the  publication  of  “ Also 
sprach  Zarathustra  ” and  therein  his  reply  was  written 
large. 

“ I teach  you,”  cries  Zarathustra,  “ the  superman  1 
Man  is  something  that  shall  be  surpassed.  What,  to 
man,  is  the  ape  ? A joke  or  a shame.  Man  shall  be  the 
same  to  the  superman:  a joke  or  shame.  . . . Man  is 
a bridge  connecting  ape  and  superman.  . . . The  super- 
man will  be  the  final  flower  and  ultimate  expression  of  the 
earth.  I conjure  you  to  be  faithful  to  the  earth.  . . to 
cease  looking  beyond  the  stars  for  your  hopes  and  rewards. 
You  must  sacrifice  yourself  to  the  earth  that  one  day  it 
may  bring  forth  the  superman.”  1 

Here  we  hearken  unto  the  materialist,  the  empiricist, 
the  monist  par  excellence.  And  herein  we  perceive  dimly 
the  outlines  of  the  superman.  He  will  be  rid  of  all  delu- 

1 ‘'■Also  sprach  Zarathustra. I. 


no 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


sions  that  hamper  and  oppress  the  will  to  power.  He  will 
be  perfect  in  body  and  perfect  in  mind.  He  will  know 
everything  worth  knowing  and  have  strength  and  skill 
and  cunning  to  defend  himself  against  any  conceivable 
foe.  Because  the  prospect  of  victory  will  feed  his  will  to 
power  he  will  delight  in  combat,  and  his  increasing  capacity 
for  combat  will  decrease  his  sensitiveness  to  pain.  Con- 
scious of  his  efficiency,  he  will  be  happy ; having  no  illu- 
sions regarding  a heaven  and  a hell,  he  will  be  content. 
He  will  see  life  as  something  pleasant  — something  to  be 
faced  gladly  and  with  a laugh.  He  will  say  “ yes  ” alike 
to  its  pleasures  and  to  its  ills.  Rid  of  the  notion  that  there 
is  anything  filthy  in  living  — that  the  flesh  is  abominable 1 
and  life  an  affliction  2 — he  will  grow  better  and  better 
fitted  to  meet  the  conditions  of  actual  existence.  He  will 
be  scornful,  merciless  and  supremely  fit.  He  wall  be  set 
free  from  man’s  fear  of  gods  and  of  laws,  just  as  man  has 
been  set  free  from  the  ape’s  fear  of  lions  and  of  open 
places. 

To  put  it  simply,  the  superman’s  thesis  will  be  this: 
that  he  has  been  put  into  the  world  without  his  consent, 
that  he  must  live  in  the  world,  that  he  owes  nothing  to  the 
other  people  there,  and  that  he  knows  nothing  whatever 
of  existence  beyond  the  grave.  Therefore,  it  will  be  his 
effort  to  attain  the  highest  possible  measure  of  satisfaction 
for  the  only  unmistakable  and  genuinely  healthy  instinct 
within  him : the  yearning  to  five  — to  attain  power  — 

, to  meet  and  overcome  the  influences  which  would  weaken 
or  destroy  him.  “ Keep  yourselves  up,  my  brethren,” 

» Galatians  V,  19,  20,  21. 

3 Job  V,  7 ; XIV,  1 ; Ecclesiastes  I,  1. 


THE  SUPERMAN 


in 


cautions  Zarathustra,  “ learn  to  keep  yourselves  up  ! The 
sea  is  stormy  and  many  seek  to  keep  afloat  by  your  aid. 
The  sea  is  stormy  and  all  are  overboard.  Well,  cheer  up 
and  save  yourselves,  ye  old  seamen ! . . . What  is  your 
fatherland?  The  land  wherein  your  children  will  dwell. 

. . . Thus  does  your  love  to  these  remote  ones  speak : 

‘ Disregard  your  neighbors ! Man  is  something  to  beN 
surpassed ! ’ Surpass  yourself  at  the  expense  of  your 
neighbor.  What  you  cannot  seize,  let  no  man  give  you. 

. . . Let  him  who  can  command,  obey ! ” 1 The  idea, 
by  this  time,  should  be  plain.  The  superman,  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  asks  and  gives  no  quarter.  He 
believes  that  it  is  the  destiny  of  sentient  beings  to  progress 
upward,  and  he  is  willing  to  sacrifice  himself  that  his  race 
may  do  so.  But  his  sacrifice  must  benefit,  not  his  neigh- 
bor— not  the  man  who  should  and  must  look  out  for 
himself  — but  the  generations  yet  unborn. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  superman  will  make  a 
broad  distinction  between  instinct  and  passion  — that 
he  will  not  mistake  the  complex  thing  we  call  love,  with 
its  costly  and  constant  hurricanes  of  emotion,  for  the 
instinct  of  reproduction  — that  he  will  not  rpistake  mere 
anger  for  war  — that  he  will  not  mistake  patriotism,  with 
all  its  absurdities  and  illusions,  for  the  homing  instinct. 
The  superman,  in  brief,  will  know  how  to  renounce  as  well 
as  how  to  possess,  but  his  renunciation  will  be  the  child, 
not  of  faith  or  of  charity,  but  of  expediency.  “ Will 
nothing  beyond  your  capacity,”  says  Zarathustra.  “ De- 
mand nothing  of  yourself  that  is  beyond  achievement ! 

. . . The  higher  a thing  is,  the  less  often  does  it  succeed. 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra''  I. 


1 1 2 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


Be  of  good  cheer ! What  matter ! Learn  to  laugh  at 
yourselves ! . . . Suppose  you  have  failed  ? Has  not 
the  future  gained  by  your  failure?”1  The  superman, 
as  Nietzsche  was  fond  of  putting  it,  must  play  at  dice 
with  death.  He  must  have  ever  in  mind  no  other  goal 
but  the  good  of  the  generations  after  him.  He  must  be 
willing  to  battle  with  his  fellows,  as  with  illusions,  that 
those  who  came  after  may  not  be  afflicted  by  these  enemies. 
He  must  be  supremely  unmoral  and  unscrupulous.  His 
must  be  the  gospel  of  eternal  defiance. 

Nietzsche,  it  wall  be  observed,  was  unable  to  give  any1 
very  definite  picture  of  this  proud,  heaven-kissing  super- 
man. It  is  only  in  Zarathustra’s  preachments  to  “ the 
higher  man,”  a sort  of  bridge  between  man  and  superman, 
that  we  may  discern  the  philosophy  of  the  latter.  On  one  j 
occasion  Nietzsche  penned  a passage  which  seemed  to 
compare  the  superman  to  “ the  great  blond  beasts  ” 
which  ranged  Europe  in  the  days  of  the  mammoth,  and 
from  this  fact  many  commentators  have  drawn  the  con- 
clusion that  he  had  in  mind  a mere  tw^o-legged  brute,  with 
none  of  the  higher  traits  that  we  now  speak  of  as  distinctly 
human.  But,  as  a matter  of  fact,  he  harbored  no  such  idea. 
In  another  place,  wherein  he  speaks  of  three  metamor- 
phoses of  the  race,  under  the  allegorical  names  of  the  camel, 
the  lion  and  the  child,  he  makes  this  plain.  The  camel, 
a hopeless  beast  of  burden,  is  man.  But  when  the  camel 
goes  into  the  solitary  desert,  it  throws  off  its  burden  and 
becomes  a lion.  That  is  to  say,  the  heavy  and  hampering 
load  of  artificial  dead-weight  called  morality  is  cast  aside 
and  the  instinct  to  live  — or,  as  Nietzsche  insists  upon 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra IV. 


THE  SUPERMAN 


113 

regarding  it,  the  will  to  power  — is  given  free  rein.  The 
lion  is  the  “ higher  man  ” — the  intermediate  stage  be- 
tween man  and  superman.  The  latter  appears  neither 
as  camel  nor  lion,  but  as  a little  child.  He  knows  a little 
child’s  peace.  He  has  a little  child’s  calm.  Like  a babe 
in  utero,  he  is  ideally  adapted  to  his  environment. 

Zarathustra  sees  man  “ like  a camel  kneeling  down  to 
be  heavy  laden.”  What  are  his  burdens  ? One  is  “ to 
humiliate  oneself.”  Another  is  “ to  love  those  who  despise 
us.”  In  the  desert  comes  the  first  metamorphosis,  and 
the  “ thou  shalt  ” of  the  camel  becomes  the  “ I will  ” of 
the  lion.  And  what  is  the  mission  of  the  lion?  “To 
create  for  itself  freedom  for  new  creating.”  After  the 
lion  comes  the  child.  It  is  “ innocence  and  oblivion,  a 
new  starting,  a play,  a wheel  rolling  by  itself,  a prime 
motor,  a holy  asserting.”  The  thought  here  is  cast  in  the 
heightened  language  of  mystic  poetry,  but  its  meaning, 
I take  it,  is  not  lost. 1 

Nietzsche,  even  more  than  Schopenhauer,  recognized 
the  fact  that  great  mental  progress  — in  the  sense  that 
mental  progress  means  an  increased  capacity  for  grappling 
with  the  conditions  of  existence  — ■ necessarily  has  to 
depend  upon  physical  efficiency.  In  exceptional  cases  a 
great  mind  may  inhabit  a diseased  body,  but  it  is  obvious 
that  this  is  not  the  rule.  A nation  in  which  the  average 
man  had  but  one  hand  and  the  duration  of  fife  was  but 
20  years  could  not  hope  to  cope  with  even  the  weakest 
nation  of  modem  Europe.  So  it  is  plain  that  the  first  step 
in  the  improvement  of  the  race  must  be  the  improvement 
of  the  body.  Jesus  Christ  gave  expression  to  this  need 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra.'"  I. 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


1 14 

by  healing  the  sick,  and  the  chief  end  and  aim  of  all  modem 
science  is  that  of  making  life  more  and  more  bearable. 
Every  labor-saving  machine  ever  invented  by  man  has 
no  other  purpose  than  that  of  saving  bodily  wear  and  tear. 
Every  religion  aims  to  rescue  man  from  the  racking  fear 
of  hell  and  the  strain  of  trying  to  solve  the  great  problems 
of  existence  for  himself.  Every  scheme  of  government 
that  we  know  is,  at  bottom,  a mere  device  for  protecting 
human  beings  from  injury  and  death. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  Nietzsche’s  program  of  progress 
does  not  differ  from  other  programs  quite  so  much  as, 
at  first  sight,  it  may  seem  to  do.  He  laid  down  the  prin- 
ciple that,  before  anything  else  could  be  accomplished, 
we  must  have  first  looked  to  the  human  machine.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  intellect  is  a mere  symptom  of  the  will  to 
live.  Therefore  whatever  removes  obstacles  to  the  free 
exercise  of  this  will  to  live,  necessarily  promotes  and 
increases  intelligence.  A race  that  was  never  incapaci- 
tated by  illness  would  be  better  fitted  than  any  other  race 
for  any  conceivable  intellectual  pursuit : from  making 
money  to  conjugating  Greek  verbs.  Nietzsche  merely 
states  this  obvious  fact  in  an  unaccustomed  form. 
r His  superman  is  to  give  his  will  to  live  — or  will  to 
/ power,  as  you  please  — ■ perfect  freedom.  As  a result, 

1 those  individuals  in  whom  this  instinct  most  accurately 
' meets  the  conditions  of  life  on  earth  will  survive,  and  in 
! their  offspring,  by  natural  laws,  the  instinct  itself  will 
become  more  and  more  accurate.  That  is  to  say,  there 
will  appear  in  future  generations  individuals  in  whom 
this  instinct  will  tend  more  and  more  to  order  the  perform- 
ance of  acts  of  positive  benefit  and  to  forbid  the  perform 


THE  SUPERMAN 


US 

ance  of  acts  likely  to  result  in  injury.  This  injury,  it  is 
plain,  may  take  the  form  of  unsatisfied  wants  as  well  as 
of  broken  skulls.  Therefore,  the  man  — or  superman  — 
in  whom  the  instinct('reaches  perfection  will  unconsciously 
steer  clear  of  all  the  things  which  harass  and  batter  man- 
kind today  — • exhausting  self-denials  as  well  as  exhausting 
passions.  Whatever  seems  likely  to  benefit  him,  he  will 
do;  whatever  seems  likely  to  injure  him  he  will  avoid. 
When  he  is  in  doubt,  he  will  dare  — and  accept  defeat  or 
victory  with  equal  calm.  His  attitude,  in  brief,  will  be 
that  of  a being  who  faces  life  as  he  finds  it,  defiantly  and 
unafraid  — ■ who  knows  how  to  fight  and  how  to  forbear 
— who  sees  things  as  they  actually  are,  and  not  as  they 
might  or  should  be,  and  so  wastes  no  energy  yearning  for 
the  moon  or  in  butting  his  head  against  stone  walls. 
“ This  new  table,  O my  brethren,  I put  over  you : Be 
hard!  ” 1 

Such  was  the  goal  that  Nietzsche  held  before  the  human 
race.  Other  philosophers  before  him  had  attempted 
the  same  thing.  Schopenhauer  had  put  forward  his  idea 
of  a race  that  had  found  happiness  in  putting  away  its 
desire  to  live.  Comte  had  seen  a vision  of  a race  whose 
every  member  sought  the  good  of  all.  The  humanitarians 
of  all  countries  had  drawn  pictures  of  Utopias  peopled 
by  beings  who  had  outgrown  all  human  instincts  — who 
had  outgrown  the  one  fundamental,  unquenchable  and 
eternal  instinct  of  every  living  thing  : the  desire  to  conquer, 
to  live,  to  remain  alive.  Nietzsche  cast  out  all  these  fine 
ideals  as  essentially  impossible.  Man  was  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  and  his  heavens  and  hells  were  creatures  of  his 

* Also  sprach  Zarathustra''  III. 


n6 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


own  vaporings.  Only  after  he  had  ceased  dreaming  of 
them  and  thrown  off  his  crushing  burden  of  transcendental 
morality  — only  thus  and  then  could  he  hope  to  rise  out 
of  the  slough  of  despond  in  which  he  wallowed. 


V 


ETERNAL  RECURRENCE 

In  the  superman  Nietzsche  showed  the  world  a con- 
ceivable and  possible  goal  for  all  human  effort.  But  there 
still  remained  a problem  and  it  was  this : When  the  super- 
man at  last  appears  on  earth,  what  then?  Will  there  be 
another  super-superman  to  follow  and  a super-super- 
superman after  that?  In  the  end,  will  man  become  the 
equal  of  the  creator  of  the  universe,  whoever  or  whatever 
He  may  be  ? Or  will  a period  of  decline  come  after,  with 
a return  down  the  long  line,  through  the  superman  to 
man  again,  and  then  on  to  the  anthropoid  ape,  to  the 
lower  mammals,  to  the  asexual  cell,  and,  finally,  to  mere 
inert  matter,  gas,  ether  and  empty  space? 

Nietzsche  answered  these  questions  by  offering  the 
theory  that  the  universe  moves  in  regular  cycles  and  that 
all  which  is  now  happening  on  earth,  and  in  all  the  stars, 
to  the  uttermost,  will  be  repeated,  again  and  again, 
throughout  eternity.  In  other  words,  he  dreamed  of  a 
cosmic  year,  corresponding,  in  some  fashion,  to  the  ter- 
restrial year.  Man,  who  has  sprung  from  the  elements, 
will  rise  into  superman,  and  perhaps  infinitely  beyond, 
and  then,  in  the  end,  by  catastrophe  or  slow  decline,  he 
will  be  resolved  into  the  primary  elements  again,  and  the 
whole  process  will  begin  anew. 

«7 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


This  notion,  it  must  be  admitted,  was  not  original  with 
Nietzsche  and  it  would  have  been  better  for  his  philosophy 
and  for  his  repute  as  an  intelligent  thinker  had  he  never 
sought  to  elucidate  it.  In  his  early  essay  on  history  he  first 
mentioned  it  and  there  he  credited  it  to  its  probable  in- 
ventors — the  Pythagoreans.1  It  was  their  belief  that, 
whenever  the  heavenly  bodies  all  returned  to  certain  fixed 
relative  positions,  the  whole  history  of  the  universe  began 
anew.  The  idea  seemed  to  fascinate  Nietzsche,  in  whom, 
despite  his  worship  of  the  actual,  there  was  an  ever- 
evident  strain  of  mysticism,  and  he  referred  to  it  often 
in  his  later  books.  The  pure  horror  of  it  — of  the  notion 
that  all  the  world’s  suffering  would  have  to  be  repeated 
again  and  again,  that  men  would  have  to  die  over  and  over 
again  for  all  infinity,  that  there  was  no  stopping  place  or 
final  goal  — the  horror  of  all  this  appealed  powerfully  to 
his  imagination.  Frau  Andreas- Salom6  tells  us  that  he 
“ spoke  of  it  only  in  a low  voice  and  with  every  sign  of  the 
profoundest  emotion  ” and  there  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
at  one  time,  he  thought  there  might  be  some  confirmation 
of  it  in  the  atomic  theory,  and  that  his  desire  to  go  to  Vienna 
to  study  the  natural  sciences  was  prompted  by  a wish  to 
investigate  this  notion.  Finally  he  became  convinced 
that  there  was  no  ground  for  such  a belief  in  any  of  the 
known  facts  of  science,  and  after  that,  we  are  told,  his 
shuddering  horror  left  him. 

1 Pythagoras  (B.  C.  57o?~5oo?)  was  a Greek  who  brought  the  doc- 
trine of  the  transmigration  of  souls  from  Asia  Minor  to  Greece.  In 
Magna  Graecia  he  founded  a mystical  brotherhood,  half  political  party 
and  half  school  of  philosophy.  It  survived  him  for  many  years  and  its 
members  revered  him  as  the  sage  of  sages.  He  was  a bitter  foe  to  de- 
mocracy and  took  part  in  wars  against  its  spread. 


ETERNAL  RECURRENCE 


119 

It  was  then  possible  for  him  to  deal  with  the  doctrine  of 
eternal  recurrence  as  a mere  philosophical  speculation, 
without  the  uncomfortable  reality  of  a demonstrated 
scientific  fact,  and  thereafter  he  spent  much  time  con- 
sidering it.  In  “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra  ” he  puts  it 
into  the  brain  of  his  prophet-hero,  and  shows  how  it  well- 
nigh  drove  the  latter  mad. 

“ I will  come  back,”  muses  Zarathustra,  “ with  this 
sun,  with  this  earth,  with  this  eagle,  with  this  serpent  — 
not  for  a new  life  or  a better  life,  but  to  the  same  life  I am 
now  leading.  I will  come  back  unto  this  same  old  life, 
in  the  greatest  things  and  in  the  smallest,  in  order  to  teach 
once  more  the  eternal  recurrence  of  all  things.”  1 

In  the  end,  Nietzsche  turned  this  fantastic  idea  into  a 
device  for  exalting  his  superman.  The  superman  is  one 
who  realizes  that  all  of  his  struggles  will  be  in  vain,  and 
that,  in  future  cycles,  he  will  have  to  go  through  them  over 
and  over  again.  Yet  he  has  attained  such  a superhuman 
immunity  to  all  emotion  — to  all  ideas  of  pleasure  and 
pain  — that  the  prospect  does  not  daunt  him.  Despite 
its  horror,  he  faces  it  unafraid.  It  is  all  a part  of  life,  and 
in  consequence  it  is  good.  He  has  learned  to  agree  to 
everything  that  exists  — - even  to  the  ghastly  necessity 
for  living  again  and  again.  In  a word,  he  does  not 
fear  an  endless  series  of  lives,  because  life,  to  him, 
has  lost  all  the  terrors  which  a merely  human  man  sees 
in  it. 

“ Let  us  not  only  endure  the  inevitable,”  says  Niet- 
zsche, “ and  still  less  hide  it  from  ourselves : let  us  love 
it!  ” 


* “ Ai'o  sprach  Zarathustra III. 


120 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


As  Vernon  Lee  (Miss  Violet  Paget) 1 has  pointed  out,  this 
idea  is  scarcely  to  be  distinguished  from  the  fundamental 
tenet  of  stoicism.  Miss  Paget  also  says  that  it  bears  a 
close  family  resemblance  to  that  denial  of  pain  which 
forms  the  basis  of  Christian  Science,  but  this  is  not  true, 
for  a vast  difference  exists  between  a mere  denial  of  pain 
and  a willingness  to  admit  it,  face  it,  and  triumph  over  it. 
But  the  notion  appears,  in  endless  guises,  in  many  phil- 
osophies and  Goethe  voiced  it,  after  a fashion,  in  his 
maxim,  “ Entbehren  sollst  du  ” (“  Man  must  do  without  ”). 
The  idea  of  eternal  recurrence  gives  point,  again,  to  a 
familiar  anecdote.  This  concerns  a joker  who  goes  to  an 
inn,  eats  his  fill  and  then  says  to  the  innkeeper:  “You 
and  I will  be  here  again  in  a million  years:  let  me  pay 
you  then.”  “ Very  well,”  replies  the  quick-witted 
innkeeper,  “ but  first  pay  me  for  the  beefsteak  you 
ate  the  last  time  you  were  here  — a million  years  ago.” 

Despite  Nietzsche’s  conclusion  that  the  known  facts  of 
existence  do  not  bear  it  out,  and  the  essential  impossibility 
of  discussing  it  to  profit,  the  doctrine  of  eternal  recurrence 
is  by  no  means  unthinkable.  The  celestial  cycle  put 
forward,  as  an  hypothesis,  by  modern  astronomy  — the 
progression,  that  is,  from  gas  to  molten  fluid,  from  fluid 
to  solid,  and  from  solid,  by  catastrophe,  back  to  gas  again 
— is  easily  conceivable,  and  it  is  easily  conceivable,  too, 
that  the  earth,  which  has  passed  through  an  uninhabit- 
able state  into  a habitable  state,  may  one  day  become 
uninhabitable  again,  and  so  keep  see-sawing  back  and 
forth  through  all  eternity. 

But  what  will  be  the  effect  of  eternal  recurrence  upon 

i North  American  Review , Dej.,  1904. 


ETERNAL  RECURRENCE 


121 


the  superman?  The  tragedy  of  it,  as  we  have  seen,  will 
merely  serve  to  make  him  heroic.  He  will  defy  the  universe 
and  say  “ yes  ” to  life.  Putting  aside  all  thought  of  con- 
scious existence  beyond  the  grave,  he  will  seek  to  live  as 
nearly  as  possible  in  exact  accordance  with  those  laws 
laid  down  for  the  evolution  of  sentient  beings  on  earth 
when  the  cosmos  was  first  set  spinning.  But  how  will  he 
know  when  he  has  attained  this  end  ? How  will  he  avoid 
going  mad  with  doubts  about  his  own  knowledge  ? Niet- 
zsche gave  much  thought,  first  and  last,  to  this  epistemo- 
logical problem,  and  at  different  times  he  leaned  toward 
different  schools,  but  his  writing,  taken  as  a whole,  indi- 
cates that  the  fruit  of  his  meditations  was  a thorough- 
going empiricism.  The  superman,  indeed,  is  an  empiricist 
who  differs  from  Bacon  only  in  the  infinitely  greater  range 
of  his  observation  and  experiment.  He  learns  by  bitter 
experience  and  he  generalizes  from  this  knowledge.  An 
utter  and  unquestioning  materialist,  he  knows  nothing 
of  mind  except  as  a function  of  body.  To  him  specula- 
tion seems  vain  and  foolish:  his  concern  is  ever  with 
imminent  affairs.  That  is  to  say,  he  believes  a thing  to  be 
true  when  his  eyes,  his  ears,  his  nose  and  his  hands  tell 
him  it  is  true.  And  in  this  he  will  be  at  one  with  all  those 
men  who  are  admittedly  above  the  mass  today.  Reject 
empiricism  and  you  reject  at  one  stroke,  the  whole  sum  of 
human  knowledge. 

When  a man  stubs  his  toe,  for  example,  the  facts  that  the 
injured  member  swells  and  that  it  hurts  most  frightfully 
appear  to  him  as  absolute  certainties.  If  we  deny  that  he 
actually  knows  these  things  and  maintain  that  the  spectacle 
of  the  swelling  and  the  sensation  of  pain  are  mere  creatures 


122 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


of  his  mind,  we  cast  adrift  from  all  order  and  common- 
sense  in  the  universe  and  go  sailing  upon  a stormy  sea  of 
crazy  metaphysics  and  senseless  contradictions.  There 
are  many  things  that  we  do  not  know,  and  in  the  nature 
of  things,  never  can  know.  We  do  not  know  why  phospho- 
rus has  a tendency  to  combine  with  oxygen,  but  the  fact 
that  it  has  we  do  know  — and  if  we  try  to  deny  we 
do  know  it,  we  must  deny  that  we  are  sentient  beings, 
and  in  consequence,  must  regard  life  and  the  universe  as 
mere  illusions.  No  man  with  a sound  mind  makes  any 
such  denial.  The  things  about  us  are  real,  just  as  our 
feeling  that  we  are  alive  is  real.1 2 

From  this  it  must  be  plain  that  the  superman  will  have 
the  same  guides  that  we  have,  viz. : his  instincts  and  senses. 
But  in  him  they  will  be  more  accurate  and  more  acute 
than  in  us,  because  the  whole  tendency  of  his  scheme  of 
things  will  be  to  fortify  and  develop  them.3  If  any  race 

1 Vide  the  chapter  on  “ Truth.” 

2 It  is  very  evident,  I take  it,  that  the  principal  function  of  all  science 
is  the  widening  of  our  perceptions.  The  chief  argument  for  idealism 

used  to  be  the  axiom  that  our  power  of  perception  was  necessarily 
limited  and  that  it  would  be  limited  forever.  This  may  be  true  still,  but 
it  is  now  apparent  that  these  limits  are  being  indefinitely  extended,  and 
may  be  extended,  in  future,  almost  infinitely.  A thousand  years  ago, 
if  any  one  had  laid  down  the  thesis  that  malaria  was  caused  by  minute 
animals,  he  would  have  been  dismissed  as  a lunatic,  because  it  was  evi- 
dent that  no  one  could  see  these  animals,  and  it  was  evident,  too- — that 
is  to  say,  the  scientists  of  that  time  held  it  to  be  evident — that  this  in- 
ability to  see  them  would  never  be  removed,  because  the  human  eye 
would  always  remain  substantially  as  it  was.  But  now  we  know  that 
the  microscope  may  increase  the  eye’s  power  of  perception  a thousand- 
fold. When  we  consider  the  fact  that  the  spectroscope  has  enabled  us 
to  make  a chemical  analysis  of  the  sun,  that  the  telephone  has  enabled 
us  to  hear  2,000  miles  and  that  the  x-rays  have  enabled  us  to  see  through 


ETERNAL  RECURRENCE 


123 


of  Europe  devoted  a century  to  exercising  its  right  arms, 
its  descendants,  in  the  century  following,  would  have  right 
arms  like  piston-rods.  In  the  same  way,  the  superman, 
by  subordinating  everything  else  to  his  instinct  to  live, 
will  make  it  evolve  into  something  very  accurate  and 
efficient.  His  whole  concern,  in  brief,  will  be  to  live  as 
long  as  possible  and  so  to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  all 
of  those  things  which  shorten  life  — by  injuring  the  body 
from  without  or  by  using  up  energy  within.  As  a result 
he  will  cease  all  effort  to  learn  why  the  world  exists  and 
will  devote  himself  to  acquiring  knowledge  how  it  exists. 
This  knowledge  how  will  be  within  his  capacity  even  more 
than  it  is  within  our  capacity  today.  Our  senses,  as  we 
have  seen,  have  given  us  absolute  knowledge  that  stubbing 
the  toe  results  in  swelling  and  pain.  The  superman’s 
developed  senses  will  give  him  absolute  knowledge  about 
everything  that  exists  on  earth.  He  will  know  exactly 
how  a tubercle  bacillus  attacks  the  lung  tissue,  he  will 
know  exactly  how  the  blood  fights  the  bacillus,  and  he 
will  know  exactly  how  to  interfere  in  this  battle  in  such  a 
manner  that  the  blood  shall  be  invariably  victorious.  In 
a word,  he  will  be  the  possessor  of  exact  and  complete 
knowledge  regarding  the  working  of  all  the  benign  and 
malignant  forces  in  the  world  about  him,  but  he  wall  not 
bother  himself  about  insoluble  problems.  He  will  waste 
no  time  speculating  as  to  why  tubercle  bacilli  were  sent 
into  the  world : his  instinct  to  live  will  be  satisfied  by  his 
success  in  stamping  them  out. 

flesh  and  bone,  we  must-  admit  without  reservation,  that  our  power  of 
perception,  at  some  future  day,  may  be  infinite.  And  if  we  admit  this 
we  must  admit  the  essential  possibility  of  the  superman. 


124 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


The  ideal  superman  then  is  merely  a man  in  whom 
instinct  works  without  interference  — a man  who  feels 
that  it  is  right  to  live  and  that  the  only  knowledge  worth 
while  is  that  which  makes  life  longer  and  more  bearable. 
The  superman’s  instinct  for  life  is  so  strong  that  its  mere 
exercise  satisfies  him,  and  so  makes  him  happy.  He 
doesn’t  bother  about  the  unknown  void  beyond  the  grave : 
it  is  sufficient  for  him  to  know  that  he  is  alive  and  that 
being  alive  is  pleasant.  He  is,  in  the  highest  sense,  a 
utilitarian,  and  he  believes  to  the  letter  in  Auguste  Comte’s1 
dictum  that  the  only  thing  living  beings  can  ever  hope  to 
accomplish  on  earth  is  to  adapt  themselves  perfectly  to 
the  natural  forces  around  them  — to  the  winds  and  the 
rain,  the  hills  and  the  sea,  the  thunderbolt  and  the  germ 
of  disease. 

“ I am  a dionysian  ! ” cries  Nietzsche.  “ I am  an  im- 
moralist ! ” He  means  simply  that  his  ideal  is  a being 
capable  of  facing  the  horrors  of  life  unafraid,  of  meeting 
great  enemies  and  slaying  them,  of  gazing  down  upon  the 
earth  in  pride  and  scorn,  of  making  his  own  way  and  bear- 
ing his  own  burdens.  In  the  profane  folk-philosophy  of 
every  healthy  and  vigorous  people,  we  find  some  trace  of 
this  dionysian  idea.  “ Let  us  so  live  day  by  day,”  says 
a distinguished  American  statesman,  “ that  we  can  look 
any  man  in  the  eye  and  tell  him  to  go  to  hell ! ” We  get 
a subtle  sort  of  joy  out  of  this  saying  because  it  voices  our 
racial  advance  toward  individualism  and  away  from 
servility  and  oppression.  We  believe  in  freedom,  in 


* “ Cours  de  philosophic  positive tr.  by  Helen  Martineau  ; London, 

l»53- 


ETERNAL  RECURRENCE  125 

toleration,  in  moral  anarchy.  We  have  put  this  notion  into 
innumerable  homely  forms. 

Things  have  come  to  a hell  of  a pass 
When  a man  can’t  wallop  his  own  jackass  I 

So  we  phrase  it.  The  superman,  did  he  stalk  the  earth, 
would  say  the  same  thing 


VI 


CHRISTIANITY 

Nietzsche’s  astonishingly  keen  and  fearless  criticism 
of  Christianity  has  probably  sent  forth  wider  ripples  than 
any  other  stone  he  ever  heaved  into  the  pool  of  philistine 
contentment.  He  opened  his  attack  in  “ Menschliches  allzu 
Menschliches,”  the  first  book  of  his  maturity,  and  he  was 
still  at  it,  in  full  fuming  and  fury,  in  “ Der  Antichrist ,” 
the  last  thing  he  was  destined  to  write.  The  closing 
chapter  of  “ Der  Antichrist  ” — his  swan  song  — contains 
his  famous  phillipic,  beginning  “ I condemn.”  It  recalls 
Zola’s  “ j' accuse  ” letter  in  the  Dreyfus  case,  but  it  is 
infinitely  more  sweeping  and  infinitely  more  uproarious 
and  daring. 

“ I condemn  Christianity,”  it  begins.  “ I bring  against 
it  the  most  terrible  of  accusations  that  ever  an  accuser 
put  into  words.  It  is  to  me  the  greatest  of  all  imaginable 
corruptions.  ...  It  has  left  nothing  untouched  by  its 
depravity.  It  has  made  a worthlessness  out  of  every 
value,  a lie  out  of  every  truth,  a sin  out  of  everything 
straightforward,  healthy  and  honest.  Let  anyone  dare 
to  speak  to  me  of  its  humanitarian  blessings ! To  do 
away  with  pain  and  woe  is  contrary  to  its  principles.  It 
lives  by  pain  and  woe:  it  has  created  pain  and  woe  in 

126 


CHRISTIANITY 


127 


order  to  perpetuate  itself.  It  invented  the  idea  of  original 
sin. 1 It  invented  ‘ the  equality  of  souls  before  God  ’ — 
that  cover  for  all  the  rancour  of  the  useless  and  base.  . . . 
It  has  bred  the  art  of  self-violation  — repugnance  and 
contempt  for  all  good  and  cleanly  instincts.  . . . Parasit- 
ism is  its  praxis.  It  combats  all  good  red-blood,  all  love 
and  all  hope  for  life,  with  its  anaemic  ideal  of  holiness. 
It  sets  up  ‘ the  other  world  ’ as  a negation  of  every  reality. 
The  cross  is  the  rallying  post  for  a conspiracy  against 
health,  beauty,  well-being,  courage,  intellect,  benevo- 
lence— 'against  life  itself.  . . . 

“ This  eternal  accusation  I shall  write  upon  all  walls  : 
I call  Christianity  the  one  great  curse,  the  one  great  intrin- 
sic depravity,  ...  for  which  no  expedient  is  sufficiently 
poisonous,  secret,  subterranean,  mean ! I call  it  the 
one  immortal  shame  and  blemish  upon  the  human 
race ! ” 2 

So  much  for  the  philosopher’s  vociferous  hurrah  at  the 
close  of  his  argument.  In  the  argument  itself  it  is  apparent 
that  his  indictment  of  Christianity  ^contains  two  chief 
counts.  The  first  is  the  allegation  that  it  is  essentially 
untrue  and  unreasonable,  and  the  second  is  the  theory 
that  it  is  degrading.  The  first  of  these  counts  is  not  un- 
familiar to  the  students  of  religious  history.  It  was  first 
voiced  by  that  high  priest  who  “ rent  his  clothes  ” and 
cried  “ What  need  have  we  of  any  further  witnesses  ? 
Ye  have  heard  the  blasphemy.” 3 It  was  voiced  again  by 
the  Romans  who  threw  converts  to  the  lions,  and  after  the 

1 Vide  the  chapter  on  “ Crime  and  Punishment.” 

* “ Der  Antichrist § 62. 

3 St.  Mark  XIV,  63,  64. 


128 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


long  silence  of  the  middle  ages,  it  was  piped  forth 
again  by  Voltaire,  Hume,  the  encyclopedists  and  Paine. 
After  the  philosophers  and  scientists  who  culminated  in 
Darwin  had  rescued  reason  for  all  time  from  the  trans- 
cendental nonsense  of  the  cobweb-spinners  and  meta- 
physicians, Huxley  came  to  the  front  with  his  terrific  heavy 
artillery  and  those  who  still  maintained  that  Christianity 
was  historically  true  — Gladstone  and  the  rest  of  the 
forlorn  hope  — were  mowed  down.  David  Strauss, 
Lessing,  Eichhorn,  Michaelis,  Bauer,  Meyer,  Ritschl, 1 
Pfleiderer  and  a host  of  others  joined  in  the  chorus  and  in 
Nietzsche’s  early  manhood  the  battle  was  practically  won. 
By  1880  no  reasonable  man  actually  believed  that  there 
were  devils  in  the  swine,  and  it  was  already  possible  to 
deny  the  physical  resurrection  and  still  maintain  a place 
in  respectable  society.  Today  a literal  faith  in  the  gospel 
narrative  is  confined  to  ecclesiastical  reactionaries,  pious 
old  ladies  and  men  about  to  be  hanged. 

Therefore,  Nietzsche  did  not  spend  much  time  examin- 
ing the  historical  credibility  of  Christianity.  He  did  not 
try  to  prove,  like  Huxley,  that  the  witnesses  to  the  resur- 
rection were  superstitious  peasants  and  hysterical  women, 
nor  did  he  seek  to  show,  like  Huxley  again,  that  Christ 
might  have  been  taken  down  from  the  cross  before  he  was 


‘Albrecht  Ritschl  (1822-89),  who  is  not  to  be  confused  with  Niet- 
zsche’s teacher  at  Bonn  and  Leipsic.  Ritschl  founded  what  is  called  the 
Ritschlian  movement  in  theology.  This  has  for  its  object  the  abandon- 
ment of  supernaturalism  and  the  defence  of  Christianity  as  a mere  scheme 
of  living.  It  admits  that  the  miracle  stories  are  fables  and  even  con- 
cedes that  Christ  was  not  divine,  but  maintains  that  his  teachings 
represent  the  best  wisdom  of  the  human  race.  See  Denny:  “Studies 
in  Theology,”  New  York,  1894. 


CHRISTIANITY 


129 

dead.  He  was  intensely  interested  in  all  such  inquiries, 
but  he  saw  that,  in  the  last  analysis,  they  left  a multitude 
of  problems  unsolved.  The  solution  of  these  unsolved 
problems  was  the  task  that  he  took  unto  himself.  Tunnel- 
ing down,  in  his  characteristic  way,  into  the  very  founda- 
tions of  the  faith,  he  endeavored  to  prove  that  it  was  based 
upon  contradictions  and  absurdities;  that  its  dogmas 
were  illogical  and  its  precepts  unworkable;  and  that  its 
cardinal  principles  presupposed  the  acceptance  of  propo- 
sitions which,  to  the  normal  human  mind,  were  essentially 
unthinkable.  This  tunneling  occupied  much  of  Nietzsche’s 
energy  in  “ Menschliches  allzu  Menschliches ,”  and  he 
returned  to  it  again  and  again,  in  all  of  the  other 
books  that  preceded  “ Der  Antichrist His  method  of 
working  may  be  best  exhibited  by  a few  concrete  ex- 
amples. 

Prayer,  for  instance,  is  an  exceedingly  important  feature 
of  Christian  worship  and  any  form  of  worship  in  which 
it  had  no  place  would  be  necessarily  unchristian.1  But 
upon  what  theory  is  prayer  based  ? Examining  the  matter 
from  all  sides  you  will  have  to  conclude  that  it  is  reasonable 
only  upon  two  assumptions:  first,  that  it  is  possible  to 
change  the  infallible  will  and  opinion  of  the  deity,  and 
secondly,  that  the  petitioner  is  capable  of  judging  what  he 
needs.  Now,  Christianity  maintains,  as  one  of  its  main 
dogmas,  that  the  deity  is  omniscient  and  all-wise,2  and, 


* Ph.  IV,  6:  “Be  careful  for  nc'hing;  but  in  everything  by  prayer 

and  supplication,  with  thanksgiving,  let  your  requests  be  made  known 
to  God.” 

aDeut.  XXXII,  4:  “He  is  the  rock,  his  work  is  perfect.”  See 
also  a hundred  similar  passages  in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


130 

as  another  fundamental  doctrine,  that  human  beings  are 
absolutely  unable  to  solve  their  problems  without  heav- 
enly aid 1 i.  e.  that  the  deity  necessarily  knows  what  is 
best  for  any  given  man  better  than  that  man  can  ever 
hope  to  know  it  himself.  Therefore,  Christianity,  in 
ordaining  prayer,  orders,  as  a condition  of  inclusion 
in  its  communion,  an  act  which  it  holds  to  be  use- 
less. This  contradiction,  argues  Nietzsche,  cannot  be 
explained  away  in  terms  comprehensible  to  the  human 
intelligence. 

Again  Christianity  holds  that  man  is  a mere  creature 
of  the  deity’s  will,  and  yet  insists  that  the  individual  be 
judged  and  punished  for  his  acts.  In  other  words,  it  tries 
to  carry  free  will  on  one  shoulder  and  determinism  on  the 
other,  and  its  doctors  and  sages  have  themselves  shown 
that  they  recognize  the  absurdity  of  this  by  their  constant, 
but  futile  efforts  to  decide  which  of  the  two  shall  be 
abandoned.  This  contradiction  is  a legacy  from  Judaism, 
and  Mohammedanism  suffers  from  it,  too.  Those  sects 
which  have  sought  to  remove  it  by  an  entire  acceptance 
of  determinism  — under  the  name  of  predestination, 
fatalism,  or  what  not  — have  become  bogged  in  hopeless 
morasses  of  unreason  and  dogmatism.  It  is  a cardinal 
doctrine  of  Presbyterianism,  for  instance,  that  “ by  the 
decree  of  God,  for  the  manifestation  of  his  glory,  some 
men  and  angels  are  predestinated  unto  everlasting  life 
and  others  foreordained  to  everlasting  death  . . . without 
any  foresight  of  faith  or  good  works,  or  perseverance  in 
either  of  them,  or  any  other  thing  in  the  creature,  as  con- 

1 Isaiah  XLIV,  8 : “ Now,  O Lord,  thou  art  our  Father ; we  are  the 
clay  and  thou  our  potter;  and  we  all  are  the  work  of  thy  hand.” 


CHRISTIANITY 


131 

ditions.  ...”  1 In  other  words,  no  matter  how  faithfully 
one  man  tries  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Christ,  he  may 
go  to  hell,  and  no  matter  how  impiously  another  sins,  he 
may  be  foreordained  for  heaven.  That  such  a belief 
makes  all  religion,  faith  and  morality  absurd  is  apparent. 
That  it  is,  at  bottom,  utterly  unthinkable  to  a reasoning 
being  is  also  plain. 

Nietzsche  devoted  a great  deal  of  time  during  his  first 
period  of  activity  to  similar  examinations  of  Christian 
ideas  and  he  did  a great  deal  to  supplement  the  historical 
investigations  of  those  English  and  German  savants 
whose  ruthless  exposure  of  fictions  and  frauds  gave  birth 
to  what  we  now  call  the  higher  criticism.  But  his  chief 
service  was  neither  in  the  field  of  historical  criticism  nor  in 
that  of  the  criticism  of  dogmas.  Toward  the  end  of  his 
life  he  left  the  business  of  examining  biblical  sources  to  the 
archeologists  and  historians,  whose  equipment  for  the 
task  was  necessarily  greater  than  his  own,  and  the  business 
of  reducing  Christian  logic  to  contradiction  and  absurdity 
to  the  logicians.  Thereafter,  his  own  work  took  him 
a step  further  down  and  in  the  end  he  got  to  the  very 
bottom  of  the  subject.  The  answer  of  the  theologians  had 
been  that,  even  if  you  denied  the  miracles,  the  gospels, 
the  divinity  of  Christ  and  his  very  existence  as  an  actual 
man,  you  would  have  to  admit  that  Christianity  itself 
was  sufficient  excuse  for  its  own  existence ; that  it  had  made 
the  world  better  and  that  it  provided  a workable  scheme 
of  life  by  which  men  could  live  and  die  and  rise  to  higher 
things.  This  answer,  for  awhile,  staggered  the  agnostics 

1 “ The  Constitution  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United 
States,”  pp.  16  to  20  : Philadelphia,  1841. 


132 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


and  Huxley  himself  evidently  came  near  being  convinced 
that  it  was  beyond  rebuttal.1  But  it  only  made  Nietzsche 
spring  into  the  arena  more  confident  than  ever.  “ Very 
well,”  he  said,  “ we  will  argue  it  out.  You  say  that 
Christianity  has  made  the  world  better  ? I say  that  it  has 
made  it  worse ! You  say  that  it  is  comforting  and  up- 
lifting ? I say  that  it  is  cruel  and  degrading ! You  say 
that  it  is  the  best  religion  mankind  has  ever  invented  ? 
I say  it  is  the  most  dangerous  ! ” 

Having  thus  thrown  down  the  gage  of  battle,  Nietzsche 
proceeded  to  fight  like  a Tartar,  and  it  is  but  common 
fairness  to  say  that,  for  a good  while,  he  bore  the  weight 
of  his  opponents’  onslaught  almost  unaided.  The  world 
was  willing  enough  to  abandon  its  belief  in  Christian 
supernaturalism  and  as  far  back  as  the  early  8o’s  the 
dignitaries  of  the  Church  of  England  — to  employ  a blunt 
but  expressive  metaphor  — had  begun  to  get  in  out  of 
the  wet.  But  the  pietists  still  argued  that  Christianity 
remained  the  fairest  flower  of  civilization  and  that  it  met 
a real  and  ever-present  human  want  and  made  mankind 
better.  To  deny  this  took  courage  of  a decidedly  unusual 
sort  — courage  that  was  willing  to  face,  not  only  ecclesi- 
astical anathema  and  denunciation,  but  also  the  almost 
automatic  opposition  of  every  so-called  respectable  man. 

1 To  the  end  of  his  days  Huxley  believed  that,  to  the  average  human 
being,  even  of  the  highest  class,  some  sort  of  faith  would  always  be 
necessary.  “My  work  in  the  London  hospitals,”  he  said,  “ taught  me 
that  the  preacher  often  does  as  much  good  as  the  doctor.”  It  would  be 
interesting  to  show  how  this  notion  has  been  abandoned  in  recent  years. 
The  trained  nurse,  who  was  unknown  in  Huxley’s  hospital  days,  now 
takes  the  place  of  the  confessor,  and  as  Dr.  Osier  has  shown  us  in 
“ Science  and  Immortality,”  men  die  just  as  comfortably  as  before. 


CHRISTIANITY 


133 


But  Nietzsche,  whatever  his  deficiencies  otherwise,  cer- 
tainly was  not  lacking  in  assurance,  and  so,  when  he  came 
to  write  “ Der  Antichrist  ” he  made  his  denial  thunderous 
and  uncompromising  beyond  expression.  No  medieval 
bishop  ever  pronounced  more  appalling  curses.  No  back- 
woods  evangelist  ever  laid  down  the  law  with  more  violent 
eloquence.  The  book  is  the  shortest  he  ever  wrote,  but  it 
is  by  long  odds  the  most  compelling.  Beginning  allegro, 
it  proceeds  from  forte,  by  an  uninterrupted  crescendo  to 
allegro  con  moltissimo  molto  fortissimo.  The  sentences  run 
into  mazes  of  italics,  dashes  and  asterisks.  It  is  German 
that  one  cannot  read  aloud  without  roaring  and  waving 
one’s  arm. 

Christianity,  says  Nietzsche,  is  the  most  dangerous 
system  of  slave-morality  the  world  has  ever  known.  “ It 
has  waged  a deadly  war  against  the  highest  type  of  man. 
It  has  put  a ban  on  all  his  fundamental  instincts.  It  has 
distilled  evil  out  of  these  instincts.  It  makes  the  strong 
and  efficient  man  its  typical  outcast  man.  It  has  taken 
the  part  of  the  weak  and  the  low ; it  has  made  an  ideal  out 
of  its  antagonism  to  the  very  instincts  which  tend  to  pre- 
serve life  and  well-being.  ...  It  has  taught  men  to  regard 
their  highest  impulses  as  sinful  — as  temptations.”  1 In  a 
word,  it  tends  to  rob  mankind  of  ail  those  qualities  which 
fit  any  living  organism  to  survive  in  the  struggle  for 
existence. 

As  we  shall  see  later  on,  civilization  obscures  and  even 
opposes  this  struggle  for  existence,  but  it  is  in  progress  all 
the  same,  at  all  times  and  under  all  conditions.  Every 
one  knows,  for  instance,  that  one- third  of  the  human 

Der  Antichrist § 5. 


134 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


beings  born  into  the  world  every  year  die  before  they  are 
five  years  old.  The  reason  for  this  lies  in  the  fact  that  they 
are,  in  some  way  or  other,  less  fitted  to  meet  the  conditions 
of  life  on  earth  than  the  other  two-thirds.  The  germ  of 
cholera  infantum  is  an  enemy  to  the  human  race,  and  so 
long  as  it  continues  to  exist  upon  earth  it  will  devote  all 
of  its  activity  to  attacking  human  infants  and  seeking  to 
destroy  them.  It  happens  that  some  babies  recover  from 
cholera  infantum,  while  others  die  of  it.  This  is  merely 
another  way  of  saying  that  the  former,  having  been  born 
with  a capacity  for  resisting  the  attack  of  the  germ,  or 
having  been  given  the  capacity  artificially,  are  better  fitted 
to  survive,  and  that  the  latter,  being  incapable  of  making 
this  resistance,  are  unfit. 

All  life  upon  earth  is  nothing  more  than  a battle  with  the 
enemies  of  life.  A germ  is  such  an  enemy,  cold  is  such  an 
enemy,  lack  of  food  is  such  an  enemy,  and  others  that  may 
be  mentioned  are  lack  of  water,  ignorance  of  natural  laws, 
armed  foes  and  deficient  physical  strength.  The  man 
who  is  able  to  get  all  of  the  food  he  wants,  and  so  can 
nourish  his  body  until  it  becomes  strong  enough  to  com- 
bat the  germs  of  disease;  who  gets  enough  to  drink, 
who  has  shelter  from  the  elements,  who  has  devised  means 
for  protecting  himself  against  the  desires  of  other  men — 
who  yearn,  perhaps,  who  take  for  themselves  some  of  the 
things  that  he  has  acquired  — such  a man,  it  is  obvious, 
is  far  better  fitted  to  live  than  a man  who  has  none  of  these 
things.  He  is  far  better  fitted  to  survive,  in  a purely 
physical  sense,  because  his  body  is  nourished  and  pro- 
tected, and  he  is  far  better  fitted  to  attain  happiness,  be- 
cause most  of  his  powerful  wants  are  satisfied. 


CHRISTIANITY 


135 


Nietzsche  maintains  that  Christianity  urges  a man  to 
make  no  such  efforts  to  insure  his  personal  survival  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  The  beatitudes  require,  he 
says,  that,  instead  of  trying  to  do  so,  the  Christian  shall 
devote  his  energies  to  helping  others  and  shall  give  no 
thought  to  himself.  Instead  of  exalting  himself  as  much 
as  possible  above  the  common  herd  and  thus  raising  his 
chances  of  surviving,  and  those  of  his  children,  above 
those  of  the  average  man,  he  is  required  to  lift  up  this 
average  man.  Now,  it  is  plain  that  every  time  he  lifts  up 
some  one  else,  he  must,  at  the  same  time,  decrease  his 
own  store,  because  his  own  store  is  the  only  stock  from 
which  he  can  draw.  Therefore,  the  tendency  of  the 
Christian  philosophy  of  humility  is  to  make  men  volun- 
tarily throw  away  their  own  chances  of  surviving,  which 
means  their  own  sense  of  efficiency,  which  means  their  own 
“ feeling  of  increasing  power,”  which  means  their  own  hap- 
piness. As  a substitute  for  this  natural  happiness,  Chris- 
tianity offers  the  happiness  derived  from  the  belief 
that  the  deity  will  help  those  who  make  the  sacrifice  and 
so  restore  them  to  their  old  superiority.  This  belief, 
as  Nietzsche  shows,  is  no  more  borne  out  by  known 
facts  than  the  old  belief  in  witches.  It  is,  in  fact,  proved 
to  be  an  utter  absurdity  by  all  human  experience. 

“ I call  an  animal,  a species,  an  individual,  depraved,” 
he  says,  “ when  it  loses  its  instincts,  when  it  selects,  when 
it  prefers  what  is  injurious  to  it.  . . . Life  itself  is  an 
instinct  for  growth,  for  continuance,  for  accumulation 
of  forces,  for  power:  where  the  will  to  power  is  wanting 
there  is  decline.”  1 Christianity,  he  says,  squarely  opposes 


1 “ Dcr  Antichrist''  § 6. 


136 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


this  will  to  power  in  the  Golden  Rule,  the  cornerstone  of 
the  faith.  The  man  who  confines  his  efforts  to  attain 
superiority  over  his  fellow  men  to  those  acts  which  he 
would  be  willing  to  have  them  do  toward  him,  obviously 
abandons  all  such  efforts  entirely.  To  put  it  in  another 
form,  a man  can’t  make  himself  superior  to  the  race  in 
general  without  making  every  other  man  in  the  world,  to 
that  extent,  his  inferior.  Now,  if  he  follows  the  Golden 
Rule,  he  must  necessarily  abandon  all  efforts  to  make 
himself  superior,  because  if  he  didn’t  he  would  be  suffering 
all  the  time  from  the  pain  of  seeing  other  men  — whose 
standpoint  the  Rule  requires  him  to  assume  — grow  in- 
ferior. Thus  his  activity  is  restricted  to  one  of  two  things : 
standing  perfectly  still  or  deliberately  making  himself 
inferior.  The  first  is  impossible,  but  Nietzsche  shows 
that  the  latter  is  not,  and  that,  in  point  of  fact,  it  is  but 
another  way  of  describing  the  act  of  sympathy  — one  of 
the  things  ordered  by  the  fundamental  dogma  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Sympathy,  says  Nietzsche,  consists  merely  of  a strong 
man  giving  up  some  of  his  strength  to  a weak  man.  The 
strong  man,  it  is  evident,  is  debilitated  thereby,  while  the 
weak  man,  very  often,  is  strengthened  but  little.  If  you 
go  to  a hanging  and  sympathize  with  the  condemned,  it 
is  plain  that  your  mental  distress,  without  helping  that 
gentleman,  weakens,  to  a perceptible  degree,  your  own 
mind  and  body,  just  as  all  other  powerful  emotions  weaken 
them,  by  consuming  energy,  and  so  you  are  handicapped 
in  the  struggle  for  life  to  the  extent  of  this  weakness.  You 
may  get  a practical  proof  of  it  an  hour  later  by  being 
overcome  and  killed  by  a foot-pad  whom  you  might  have 


CHRISTIANITY 


137 


been  able  to  conquer,  had  you  been  feeling  perfectly  well, 
or  by  losing  money  to  some  financial  rival  for  whom, 
under  normal  conditions,  you  would  have  been  a match, 
and  then  again  you  may  get  no  immediate  or  tangible  proof 
of  it  at  all.  But  your  organism  will  have  been  weakened 
to  some  measurable  extent,  all  the  same,  and  at  some 
time  — perhaps  on  your  death  bed  — this  minute  drain 
will  make  itself  evident,  though,  of  course,  you  may  never 
know  it. 

“ Sympathy,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ stands  in  direct  antithe- 
sis to  the  tonic  passions  which  elevate  the  energy  of  human 
beings  and  increase  their  feeling  of  efficiency  and  power. 
It  is  a depressant.  One  loses  force  by  sympathizing  and 
any  loss  of  force  which  has  been  caused  by  other  means  — 
personal  suffering,  for  example  — is  increased  and  multi- 
plied by  sympathy.  Suffering  itself  becomes  contagious 
through  sympathy  and  under  certain  circumstances  it  may 
lead  to  a total  loss  of  life.  If  a proof  of  that  is  desired, 
consider  the  case  of  the  Nazarene,  whose  sympathy  for  his 
fellow  men  brought  him,  in  the  end,  to  the  cross. 

“ Again,  sympathy  thwarts  the  law  of  development,  of 
evolution,  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  It  preserves  what  is 
ripe  for  extinction,  it  works  in  favor  of  life’s  condemned 
ones,  it  gives  to  life  itself  a gloomy  aspect  by  the  number 
of  the  ill-constituted  it  maintains  in  fife.  ...  It  is  both 
a multiplier  of  misery  and  a conservator  of  misery.  It  is 
the  principal  tool  for  the  advancement  of  decadence.  It 
leads  to  nothingness,  to  the  negation  of  all  those  instincts 
which  are  at  the  basis  of  life.  . . . But  one  does  not  say 
‘ nothingness ; ’ one  says  instead  ‘ the  other  world  ’ or 
* the  better  life.’  . , , This  innocent  rhetoric,  out  of  the 


138 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


domain  of  religio-moral  fantasy,  becomes  far  from  inno- 
cent when  one  realizes  what  tendency  it  conceals:  the 
tendency  hostile  to  life”  1 

The  foregoing  makes  it  patent  that  Nietzsche  was  a 
thorough-going  and  uncompromising  biological  monist. 
That  is  to  say,  he  believed  that  man,  while  superior  to  all 
other  animals  because  of  his  greater  development,  was, 
after  all,  merely  an  animal,  like  the  rest  of  them ; that  the 
struggle  for  existence  went  on  among  human  beings  ex- 
actly as  it  went  on  among  the  lions  in  the  jungle  and  the 
protozoa  in  the  sea  ooze,  and  that  the  law  of  natural  selec- 
tion ruled  all  of  animated  nature  — mind  and  matter  — - 
alike.  Indeed,  it  is  but  just  to  credit  him  with  being  the 
pioneer  among  modern  monists  of  this  school,  for  he 
stated  and  defended  the  doctrine  of  morphological  uni- 
versality at  a time  when  practically  all  the  evolutionists 
doubted  it,  and  had  pretty  well  proved  its  truth  some  years 
before  Haeckel  wrote  his  “ Monism  ” and  “ The  Riddle 
of  the  Universe.” 

To  understand  all  of  this,  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to 
Darwin  and  his  first  statement  of  the  law  of  natural 
selection.  Darwin  proved,  in  “ The  Origin  of  the  Spe- 
cies,” that  a great  many  more  individuals  of  any  given 
species  of  living  being  are  born  into  the  world  each  year 
than  can  possibly  survive.  Those  that  are  best  fitted  to 
meet  the  condition  of  existence  live  on;  those  that  are 
worst  fitted  die.  The  result  is  that,  by  the  influence  of 
heredity,  the  survivors  beget  a new  generation  in  which 
there  is  a larger  percentage  of  the  fit.  One  might  think 
that  this  would  cause  a greater  number  to  survive,  but 


1 “ Dtr  Antichrist  § 7. 


CHRISTIANITY 


T39 


inasmuch  as  the  food  and  room  on  earth  are  limited,  a 
large  number  must  always  die.  But  all  the  while  the  half 
or  third,  or  whatever  the  percentage  may  be,  which 
actually  do  survive  become  more  and  more  fit.  In  conse- 
quence, a species,  generation  after  generation,  tends  to 
become  more  and  more  adapted  to  meet  life’s  vicissitudes, 
or,  as  the  biologists  say,  more  and  more  adapted  to  its 
environment. 

Darwin  proved  that  this  law  was  true  of  all  the  lower 
animals  and  showed  that  it  was  responsible  for  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  lower  apes  into  anthropoid  apes,  and  that  it 
could  account,  theoretically,  for  a possible  evolution  of 
anthropoid  apes  into  man.  But  in  “ The  Descent  of 
Man  ” he  argued  that  the  law  of  natural  selection  ceased 
when  man  became  an  intelligent  being.  Thereafter,  he 
said,  man’s  own  efforts  worked  against  those  of  nature. 
Instead  of  letting  the  unfit  of  his  race  die,  civilization 
began  to  protect  and  preserve  them.  The  result  was 
that  nature’s  tendency  to  make  all  living  beings  more  and 
more  sturdy  was  set  aside  by  man’s  own  conviction  that 
mere  sturdiness  was  not  the  thing  most  to  be  desired. 
From  this  Darwin  argued  that  if  two  tribes  of  human 
beings  lived  side  by  side,  and  if,  in  one  of  them,  the  unfit 
were  permitted  to  perish,  while  in  the  other  there  were 
many  “ courageous,  sympathetic  and  faithful  members, 
who  were  always  ready  to  warn  each  other  of  danger,  and 
to  aid  and  defend  one  another  ” — that  in  such  a case, 
the  latter  tribe  would  make  the  most  progress,  despite 
its  concerted  effort  to  defy  a law  of  nature. 

Darwin’s  disciples  agreed  with  him  in  this  and  some 
of  them  went  to  the  length  of  asserting  that  civilization, 


140 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


in  its  essence,  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  a successful 
defiance  of  this  sort. 1 Herbert  Spencer  was  much  troubled 
by  the  resultant  confusion  and  as  one  critic  puts  it,2  the 
whole  drift  of  his  thought  “ appears  to  be  inspired  by  the 
question:  how  to  evade  and  veil  the  logical  consequence 
of  evolutionarism  for  human  existence  ? ” John  Fiske, 
another  Darwinian,  accepted  the  situation  without  such 
disquieting  doubt.  “ When  humanity  began  to  be 
evolved,”  he  said,  “ an  entirely  new  chapter  in  the  history 
of  the  universe  was  opened.  Henceforth  the  life  of  the 
nascent  soul  came  to  be  first  in  importance  and  the  bodily 
life  became  subordinated  to  it.” 3 Even  Huxley  believed 
that  man  would  have  to  be  excepted  from  the  operation 
of  the  law  of  natural  selection.  “ The  ethical  progress 
of  society,”  he  said,  “ depends,  not'  on  imitating  the 
cosmic  process  and  still  less  on  running  away  from  it,  but 
in  combating  it.”  He  saw  that  it  was  audacious  thus 
to  pit  man  against  nature,  but  he  thought  that  man  was 
sufficiently  important  to  make  such  an  attempt  and  hoped 
“ that  the  enterprise  might  meet  with  a certain  measure 
of  success.”4  And  the  other  Darwinians  agreed  with 
him. 5 

‘Alfred  Russell  Wallace:  “ Darwinism,”  London,  1889. 

‘Alexander  Tille,  introduction  to  the  Eng.  tr.  of  “The  Works  of 
Friedrich  Nietzsche,”  vol.  XI;  New  York,  1896. 

* John  Fiske  : “ The  Destiny  of  Man  ; ” London,  1884. 

4 Romanes  Lecture  on  “ Evolution  and  Ethics,”  1893. 

5 As  a matter  of  fact  this  dualism  still  lives.  Thus  it  was  lately  de- 
fended by  a correspondent  of  the  New  York  Sun : “ If  there  can  be  such 
a thing  as  an  essential  difference  there  surely  is  one  between  the  animal 
evolution  discovered  by  Darwin  and  the  self-culture,  progress  and 
spiritual  aspiration  of  man,”  Many  other  writers  on  the  subject  take 
the  same  position. 


CHRISTIANITY 


141 

As  all  the  best  critics  of  philosophy  have  pointed  out,1 
any  philosophical  system  which  admits  such  a great  con- 
tradiction fails  utterly  to  furnish  workable  standards  of 
order  in  the  universe,  and  so  falls  short  of  achieving 
philosophy’s  first  aim.  We  must  either  believe  with  the 
scholastics  that  intelligence  rules,  or  we  must  believe, 
with  Haeckel,  that  all  things  happen  in  obedience  to  inva- 
riable natural  laws.  We  cannot  believe  both.  A great  many 
men,  toward  the  beginning  of  the  90’s,  began  to  notice 
this  fatal  defect  in  Darwin’s  idea  of  human  progress.  In 
1891  one  of  them  pointed  out  the  conclusion  toward 
which  it  inevitably  led.2  If  we  admitted,  he  said,  that 
humanity  had  set  at  naught  the  law  of  natural  selection, 
we  must  admit  that  civilization  was  working  against 
nature’s  efforts  to  preserve  the  race,  and  that,  in  the  end, 
humanity  would  perish.  To  put  it  more  succinctly,  man 
might  defy  the  law  of  natural  selection  as  much  as  he 
pleased,  but  he  could  never  hope  to  set  it  aside.  Soon 
or  late,  he  would  awaken  to  the  fact  that  he  remained  a 
mere  animal,  like  the  rabbit  and  the  worm,  and  that, 
if  he  permitted  his  body  to  degenerate  into  a thing  en- 
tirely lacking  in  strength  and  virility,  not  all  the  intelligence 
conceivable  could  save  him. 

Nietzsche  saw  all  this  clearly  as  early  as  187 7. 3 He 

1 See  the  article  on  “ Monism”  in  the  New  International 
Encyclopedia. 

2 A.  J.  Balfour:  Fragment  on  Progress;”  London,  1891. 

3 He  was  a monist,  indeed,  as  early  as  1873,  at  which  time  he  had  ap- 
parently not  yet  noticed  Darwin’s  notion  that  the  human  race  could 
successfully  defy  the  law  of  natural  selection.  “The  absence  of  any 
cardinal  distinction  between  man  and  beast,”  he  said,  “ is  a doctrine 
which  I consider  true.”  (“  Unzcitgemassc  Betrachtungen''  I,  189.)  Nev- 


142 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


saw  that  what  passed  for  civilization,  as  represented  by 
Christianity,  was  making  such  an  effort  to  defy  and 
counteract  the  law  of  natural  selection,  and  he  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  result  would  be  disaster.  Chris- 
tianity, he  said,  ordered  that  the  strong  should  give  part 
of  their  strength  to  the  weak,  and  so  tended  to  weaken  the 
whole  race.  Self-sacrifice,  he  said,  was  an  open  defiance 
of  nature,  and  so  were  all  the  other  Christian  virtues,  in 
varying  degree.  He  proposed,  then,  that  before  it  was  too 
late,  humanity  should  reject  Christianity,  as  the  “ greatest 
of  all  imaginable  corruptions,”  and  admit  freely  and  fully 
that  the  law  of  natural  selection  was  universal  and  thaf 
the  only  way  to  make  real  progress  was  to  conform  to  it. 

It  may  be  asked  here  how  Nietzsche  accounted  for  the 
fact  that  humanity  had  survived  so  long  — for  the  fact 
that  the  majority  of  men  were  still  physically  healthy  and 
that  the  race,  as  a whole,  was  still  fairly  vigorous.  He 
answered  this  in  two  ways.  First,  he  denied  that  the  race 
was  maintaining  to  the  full  its  old  vigor.  “ The  European 
of  the  present,”  he  said,  “ is  far  below  the  European  of 
the  Renaissance.”  It  would  be  absurd,  he  pointed  out,  to 
allege  that  the  average  German  of  1880  was  as  strong  and 
as  healthy  — i.  e.  as  well  fitted  to  his  environment  — 

ertheless,  in  a moment  of  sophistry,  late  in  life,  he  undertook  to 
criticize  the  law  of  natural  selection  and  even  to  deny  its  effects  ( vide 
“Roving  Expeditions  of  an  Inopportune  Philosopher,”  § 14,  in  “The 
Twilight  of  the  Idols  ” ).  It  is  sufficient  to  say,  in  answer,  that  the  law 
itself  is  inassailable  and  that  all  of  Nietzsche’s  work,  saving  this  single 
unaccountable  paragraph,  helps  support  it.  His  frequent  sneers  at 
Darwin,  in  other  places,  need  not  be  taken  too  seriously.  Everything 
English,  toward  the  close  of  his  life,  excited  his  ire,  but  the  fact  re- 
mains that  he  was  a thorough  Darwinian  and  that,  without  Darwin’s 
work,  his  own  philosophy  would  have  been  impossible. 


CHRISTIANITY 


143 


as  the  “ blond  beast  ” who  roamed  the  Saxon  lowlands 
in  the  days  of  the  mammoth.  It  would  be  equally  absurd 
to  maintain  that  the  highest  product  of  modern  civili- 
zation — the  town-dweller  — was  as  vigorous  and  as 
capable  of  becoming  the  father  of  healthy  children  as  the 
intelligent  farmer,  whose  life  was  spent  in  approximate 
accordance  with  all  the  more  obvious  laws  of  health. 

Nietzsche’s  second  answer  was  that  humanity  had 
escaped  utter  degeneration  and  destruction  because, 
despite  its  dominance  as  a theory  of  action,  few  men 
actually  practiced  Christianity.  It  was  next  to  impossible, 
he  said,  to  find  a single  man  who,  literally  and  absolutely, 
obeyed  the  teachings  of  Christ.1  There  were  plenty  of 
men  who  thought  they  were  doing  so,  but  all  of  them  were 
yielding  in  only  a partial  manner.  Absolute  Christianity 
meant  absolute  disregard  of  self.  It  was  obvious  that  a 
man  who  reached  this  state  of  mind  would  be  unable  to 
follow  any  gainful  occupation,  and  so  would  find  it  im- 
possible to  preserve  his  own  life  or  the  lives  of  his  children. 
In  brief,  said  Nietzsche,  an  actual  and  utter  Christian 
would  perish  today  just  as  Christ  perished,  and  so,  in  his 
own  fate,  would  provide  a conclusive  argument  against 
Christianity. 

Nietzsche  pointed  out  further  that  everything  which 
makes  for  the  preservation  of  the  human  race  is  diamet- 
rically opposed  to  the  Christian  ideal.  Thus  Christianity 
becomes  the  foe  of  science.  The  one  argues  that  man 
should  sit  still  and  let  God  reign;  the  other  that  man 

1 This  observation  is  as  old  as  Montaigne,  who  said:  “After  all,  the 
stoics  were  actually  stoical,  but  where  in  all  Christendom  will  you  find 
a Christian  ? ” 


144 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


should  battle  against  the  tortures  which  fate  inflicts  upon 
him,  and  try  to  overcome  them  and  grow  strong.  Thus 
all  science  is  unchristian,  because,  in  the  last  analysis,  the 
whole  purpose  and  effort  of  science  is  to  arm  man  against 
loss  of  energy  and  death,  and  thus  make  him  self-reliant 
and  unmindful  of  any  duty  of  propitiating  the  deity. 
That  this  antagonism  between  Christianity  and  the  search 
for  truth  really  exists  has  been  shown  in  a practical  way 
time  and  again.  Since  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era 
the  church  has  been  the  bitter  and  tireless  enemy  of  all 
science,  and  this  enmity  has  been  due  to  the  fact  that  every 
member  of  the  priest  class  has  realized  that  the  more  a 
man  learned  the  more  he  came  to  depend  upon  his  own 
efforts,  and  the  less  he  was  given  to  asking  help  from 
above.  In  the  ages  of  faith  men  prayed  to  the  saints 
when  they  were  ill.  Today  they  send  for  a doctor.  In  the 
ages  of  faith  battles  were  begun  with  supplications,  and 
it  was  often  possible  to  witness  the  ridiculous  spectacle 
of  both  sides  praying  to  the  same  God.  Today  every 
sane  person  knows  that  the  victory  goes  to  the  wisest 
generals  and  largest  battalions. 

Nietzsche  thus  showed,  first,  that  Christianity  (and  all 
other  ethical  systems  having  self-sacrifice  as  their  basis) 
tended  to  oppose  the  law  of  natural  selection  and  so  made 
the  race  weaker ; and  secondly,  that  the  majority  of  men, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  were  aware  of  this,  and 
so  made  no  effort  to  be  absolute  Christians.  If  Christianity 
were  to  become  universal,  he  said,  and  every  man  in  the 
world  were  to  follow  Christ’s  precepts  to  the  letter  in  all 
the  relations  of  daily  life,  the  race  would  die  out  in  a genera- 
tion. This  being  true  — and  it  may  be  observed  in 


CHRISTIANITY 


145 


passing  that  no  one  has  ever  successfully  controverted  it 

— there  follows  the  converse : that  the  human  race  had 
best  abandon  the  idea  of  self-sacrifice  altogether  and 
submit  itself  to  the  law  of  natural  selection.  If  this  is 
done,  says  Nietzsche,  the  result  will  be  a race  of  supermen 

— of  proud,  strong  dionysians  — of  men  who  will  say 
“ yes  ” to  the  world  and  will  be  ideally  capable  of  meeting 
the  conditions  under  which  life  must  exist  on  earth. 

In  his  efforts  to  account  for  the  origin  of  Christianity, 
Nietzsche  was  less  happy,  and  indeed  came  very  near  the 
border-line  of  the  ridiculous.  The  faith  of  modern 
Europe,  he  said,  was  the  result  of  a gigantic  effort  on  the 
part  of  the  ancient  Jews  to  revenge  themselves  upon  their 
masters.  The  Jews  were  helpless  and  inefficient  and  thus 
evolved  a slave-morality.  Naturally,  as  slaves,  they 
hated  their  masters,  while  realizing,  all  the  while,  the 
unmanliness  of  the  ideals  they  themselves  had  to  hold  to 
in  order  to  survive.  So  they  crucified  Christ,  who  voiced 
these  same  ideals,  and  the  result  was  that  the  outside 
world,  which  despised  the  Jews,  accepted  Christ  as  a 
martyr  and  prophet  and  thus  swallowed  the  Jewish  ideals 
without  realizing  it.  In  a word,  the  Jews  detested  the 
slave-morality  which  circumstances  thrust  upon  them, 
and  got  their  revenge  by  foisting  it,  in  a sugar-coated  pill, 
upon  their  masters. 

It  is  obvious  that  this  idea  is  sheer  lunacy.  That  the 
Jews  ever  realized  the  degenerating  effect  of  their  own 
slave-morality  is  unlikely,  and  that  they  should  take 
counsel  together  and  plan  such  an  elaborate  and  com- 
plicated revenge,  is  impossible.  The  reader  of  Nietzsche 
must  expect  to  encounter  such  absurdities  now  and  then. 


146 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


The  mad  German  was  ordinarily  a most  logical  and 
orderly  thinker,  but  sometimes  the  traditional  German 
tendency  to  indulge  in  wild  and  imbecile  flights  of  specu- 
lation cropped  up  in  him. 


vn 


TRUTH 

At  the  bottom  of  all  philosophy,  of  all  science  and  of  all 
thinking,  you  will  find  the  one  all-inclusive  question : How 
is  man  to  tell  truth  from  error  ? The  ignorant  man  solves 
this  problem  in  a very  simple  manner : he  holds  that  what- 
ever he  believes,  he  knows;  and  that  whatever  he  knows 
is  true.  This  is  the  attitude  of  all  amateur  and  professional 
theologians,  politicians  and  other  numbskulls  of  that  sort. 
The  pious  old  maid,  for  example,  who  believes  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  immaculate  conception  looks  upon  her 
faith  as  proof,  and  holds  that  all  who  disagree  with  her 
will  suffer  torments  in  hell.  Opposed  to  this  childish 
theory  of  knowledge  is  the  chronic  doubt  of  the  educated 
man.  He  sees  daily  evidence  that  many  things  held  to  be 
true  by  nine-tenths  of  all  men  are,  in  reality,  false,  and  he 
is  thereby  apt  to  acquire  a doubt  of  everything,  including 
his  own  beliefs. 

At  different  times  in  the  history  of  man,  various  methods 
of  solving  or  evading  the  riddle  have  been  proposed.  In 
the  age  of  faith  it  was  held  that,  by  his  own  efforts  alone, 
man  was  unable,  even  partly,  to  distinguish  between  truth 
and  error,  but  that  he  could  always  go  for  enlightenment 
to  an  infallible  encyclopedia:  the  word  of  god,  as  set 


147 


148 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


forth,  through  the  instrumentality  of  inspired  scribes,  in 
the  holy  scriptures.  If  these  scriptures  said  that  a certain 
proposition  was  true,  it  was  true,  and  any  man  who  doubted 
it  was  either  a lunatic  or  a criminal.1  This  doctrine  pre- 
vailed in  Europe  for  many  years  and  all  who  ventured 
to  oppose  it  were  in  danger  of  being  killed,  but  in  the 
course  of  time  the  number  of  doubters  grew  so  large  that 
it  was  inconvenient  or  impossible  to  kill  all  of  them,  and 
so,  in  the  end,  they  had  to  be  permitted  to  voice  their 
doubts  unharmed. 

The  first  man  of  this  new  era  to  inflict  any  real  damage 
upon  the  ancient  churchly  idea  of  revealed  wisdom  was 
Nicolas  of  Cusa,  a cardinal  of  the  Romap  Catholic  Church, 
who  lived  in  the  early  part  of  the  fifteenth  century.2  Despite 
his  office  and  his  time,  Nicolas  was  an  independent  and 
intelligent  man,  and  it  became  apparent  to  him,  after  long 
reflection,  that  mere  belief  in  a thing  was  by  no  means  a 
proof  of  its  truth.  Man,  he  decided  was  prone  to  err,  but 
in  the  worst  of  his  errors,  there  was  always  some  kernel 
of  truth,  else  he  would  revolt  against  it  as  inconceivable. 
Therefore,  he  decided,  the  best  thing  for  man  to  do  was  to 
hold  all  of  his  beliefs  lightly  and  to  reject  them  whenever 
they  began  to  appear  as  errors.  The  real  danger,  he  said, 
, was  not  in  making  mistakes,  but  in  clinging  to  them  after 
they  were  known  to  be  mistakes. 

It  seems  well  nigh  impossible  that  a man  of  Nicolas’ 
age  and  training  should  have  reasoned  so  clearly,  but 

1 J.  W.  Draper,  “ A History  of  the  Conflict  Between  Religion  and 
Science;  ” New  York,  1874. 

* Richard  Falckenberg  : “ A History  of  Modern  Philosophy,”  tr.  by 
A.  C.  Armstrong,  Jr.;  New  York,  1897;  Chap.  I. 


TRUTH 


149 


the  fact  remains  that  he  did,  and  that  all  of  modern 
philosophy  is  built  upon  the  foundations  he  laid.  Since 
his  time  a great  many  other  theories  of  knowledge  have 
been  put  forward,  but  all  have  worked,  in  a sort  of  circle, 
back  to  Nicolas.  It  would  be  interesting,  perhaps,  to 
trace  the  course  and  history  of  these  variations  and  denials, 
but  such  an  enterprise  is  beyond  the  scope  of  the  present 
inquiry.  Nicolas  by  no  means  gave  the  world  a com- 
plete and  wholly  credible  system  of  philosophy.  Until 
the  day  of  his  death  scholasticism  was  dominant  in  the 
world  that  he  knew,  and  it  retained  its  old  hold  upon 
human  thought,  in  fact,  for  nearly  two  hundred  years 
thereafter.  Not  until  Descartes,  in  1619,  made  his 
famous  resolution  “ to  take  nothing  for  the  truth  without 
clear  knowledge  that  it  is  such,”  did  humanity  in  general 
begin  to  realize,  as  Huxley  says,  that  there  was  sanctity 
in  doubt.  And  even  Descartes  could  not  shake  himself 
free  of  the  supernaturalism  and  other  balderdash  which 
yet  colored  philosophy.  He  laid  down,  for  all  time,  the 
emancipating  doctrine  that  “ the  profession  of  belief 
in  propositions,  of  the  truth  of  which  there  is  no  suffi- 
cient evidence,  is  immoral  ” — a doctrine  that  might 
well  be  called  the  Magna  Charta  of  human  thought 1 — but 
it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  he  also  laid  down  other 
doctrines  and  that  many  of  them  were  visionary  and 
silly.  The  philosophers  after  him  rid  their  minds  of  the 
old  ideas  but  slowly  and  there  were  frequent  reversions 
to  the  ancient  delusion  that  a man’s  mind  is  a function 
of  his  soul  — whatever  that  may  be  — and  not  of  his 
body.  It  was  common,  indeed,  for  a philosopher  to 
* T.  H.  Huxley:  “ Hume,”  preface ; London,  1879. 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


*5° 

set  out  with  sane,  debatable,  conceivable  ideas  — and 
then  to  go  soaring  into  the  idealistic  clouds.1  Only 
in  our  own  time  have  men  come  to  understand  that  the 
ego,  for  all  its  seeming  independence,  is  nothing  more 
than  the  sum  of  inherited  race  experience  — that  a 
man’s  soul,  his  conscience  and  his  attitude  of  mind 
are  things  he  has  inherited  from  his  ancestors,  just  as  he 
has  inherited  his  two  eyes,  his  ten  toes  and  his  firm 
belief  in  signs,  portents  and  immortality.  Only  in  our 
own  time  have  men  ceased  seeking  a golden  key  to  all 
riddles,  and  sat  themselves  down  to  solve  one  riddle  at 
a time. 

Those  metaphysicians  who  fared  farthest  from  the 
philosopher  of  Cusa  evolved  the  doctrine  that,  in  them- 
selves, things  have  no  existence  at  allj  and  that  we  can 
think  of  them  only  in  terms  of  our  impressions  of  them. 
The  color  green,  for  example,  may  be  nothing  but  a delu- 
sion, for  all  we  can  possibly  know  of  it  is  that,  under 
certain  conditions,  our  optic  nerves  experience  a sensation 
of  greenness.  Whether  this  sensation  of  greenness  is  a 
mere  figment  of  our  imagination  or  the  reflection  of  an 
actual  physical  state,  is  something  that  we  cannot  tell. 
It  is  impossible,  in  a word,  to  determine  whether  there 
are  actual  things  around  us,  which  produce  real  impres- 
sions upon  us,  or  whether  our  idea  of  these  things  is  the 
mere  result  of  subjective  impressions  or  conditions.  We 
know  that  a blow  on  the  eyes  may  cause  us  to  see  a flash 
of  light  which  does  not  exist  and  that  a nervous  person 
may  feel  the  touch  of  hands  and  hear  noises  which  are 
purely  imaginary.  May  it  not  be  possible,  also,  that  all 

* Comte  and  Kant,  for  example. 


TRUTH 


151 

Other  sensations  have  their  rise  within  us  instead  of  without, 
and  that  in  saying  that  objects  give  us  impressions  we  have 
been  confusing  cause  and  effect  ? 

Such  is  the  argument  of  those  metaphysicians  who 
doubt,  not  only  the  accuracy  of  human  knowledge,  but  also 
tE'e  very  capacity  of  human  beings  to  acquire  knowledge. 
It  is  apparent,  on  brief  reflection,  that  this  attitude,  while 
theoretically  admissible,  is  entirely  impracticable,  and 
that,  as  a matter  of  fact,  it  gives  us  no  more  substantial 
basis  for  intelligent  speculation  than  the  old  device  of 
referring  all  questions  to  revelation.  To  say  that  nothing 
exists  save  in  the  imagination  of  living  beings  is  to  say  that 
this  imagination  itself  does  not  exist.  This,  of  course,  is  ] 
an  absurdity,  because  every  man  is  absolutely  certain  that 
he  himself  is  a real  thing  and  that  his  mind  is  a real  thing, 
too,  and  capable  of  thought.  In  place  of  such  cob-web 
spinning,  modern  philosophers  — driven  to  it,  it  may  be 
said,  in  parenthesis,  by  the  scientists  — have  gone  back 
to  the  doctrine  that,  inasmuch  as  we  can  know  nothing 
of  anything  save  through  the  impressions  it  makes  upon 
us,  these  impressions  must  be  accepted  provisionally  as 
accurate,  so  long  as  they  are  evidently  normal  and  har- 
monize one  with  the  other. 

That  is  to  say,  our  perceptions,  corrected  by  our  experi- 
ence and  our  common  sense,  must  serve  as  guides  for  us, 
and  we  must  seize  every  opportunity  to  widen  their  range 
and  increase  their  accuracy.  For  millions  of  years  they 
have  been  steadily  augmenting  our  store  of  knowledge.  We 
know,  for  instance,  that  when  fire  touches  us  it  causes 
an  impression  which  we  call  pain  and  that  this  impression 
is  invariably  the  same,  and  always  leads  to  the  same  re- 


152 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


suits,  in  all  normal  human  beings.  Therefore,  we  accept  it 
as  an  axiom  that  fire  causes  pain.  There  are  many  other 
ideas  that  may  be  and  have  been  established  in  the  same 
manner:  by  the  fact  that  they  are  universal  among  sane 
men.  But  there  is  also  a multitude  of  things  which  pro- 
duce different  impressions  upon  different  men,  and  here 
we  encounter  the  problem  of  determining  which  of  these 
impressions  is  right  and  which  is  wrong.  One  man, 
observing  the  rising  and  setting  of  the  sun,  concludes  that 
it  is  a ball  of  fire  revolving  about  the  earth.  Another 
man,  in  the  face  of  the  same  phenomena,  concludes  that 
the  earth  revolves  around  the  sun.  How,  then,  are  we  to 
determine  which  of  these  men  has  drawn  the  proper 
conclusion  ? 

As  a matter  of  fact,  it  is  impossible  in  such  a case,  to 
come  to  any  decision  which  can  be  accepted  as  utterly 
and  absolutely  true.  But  all  the  same  the  scientific 
empiric  method  enables  us  to  push  the  percentage  of  error 
nearer  and  nearer  to  the  irreducible  minimum.  We  can 
observe  the  phenomenon  under  examination  from  a multi- 
tude of  sides  and  compare  the  impression  it  produces  with 
the  impressions  produced  by  kindred  phenomena  regarding 
which  we  know  more.  Again,  we  can  put  this  examination 
into  the  hands  of  men  specially  trained  and  fitted  for  such 
work  — men  whose  conclusions  we  know,  by  previous 
experience,  to  be  above  the  average  of  accuracy.  And  so, 
after  a long  time,  we  can  formulate  some  idea  of  the  thing 
under  inspection  which  violates  few  or  none  of  the  other 
ideas  held  by  us.  When  we  have  accomplished  this,  we 
have  come  as  near  to  the  absolute  truth  as  it  is  possible 
for  human  beings  to  come. 


TRUTH 


153 


I need  not  point  out  that  this  method  does  not  contem- 
plate a mere  acceptance  of  the  majority  vote.  Its  actual 
effect,  indeed,  is  quite  the  contrary,  for  it  is  only  a small 
minority  of  human  beings  who  may  be  said,  with  any  truth, 
to  be  capable  of  thought.  It  is  probable,  for  example, 
that  nine-tenths  of  the  people  in  Christendom  today  be- 
lieve that  Friday  is  an  unlucky  day,  while  only  the  re- 
maining tenth  hold  that  one  day  is  exactly  like  another. 
But  despite  this,  it  is  apparent  that  the  idea  of  the  latter 
will  survive  and  that,  by  slow  degrees,  it  will  be  forced 
upon  the  former.  We  know  that  it  is  true,  not  because 
it  is  accepted  by  all  men  or  by  the  majority  of  men  — for, 
as  a matter  of  fact,  we  have  seen  that  it  isn’t  — but  because 
we  realize  that  the  few  who  hold  to  it  are  best  capable 
of  distinguishing  between  actual  impressions  and  mere 
delusions. 

Again,  the  scientific  method  tends  to  increase  our  knowl- 
edge by  the  very  fact  that  it  discourages  unreasoning  faith. 
The  scientist  realizes  that  most  of  his  so-called  facts  are 
probably  errors  and  so  he  is  willing  to  harbor  doubts  of 
their  truth  and  to  seek  for  something  better.  Like 
Socrates  he  boldly  says  “ I know  that  I am  ignorant.” 
He  realizes,  in  fact,  that  error,  when  it  is  constantly  under 
fire,  is  bound  to  be  resolved  in  the  long  run  into  something 
approximating  the  truth.  As  Nicolas  pointed  out  500 
years  ago,  nothing  is  utterly  and  absolutely  true  and 
nothing  is  utterly  and  absolutely  false.  There  is  always 
a germ  of  truth  in  the  worst  error,  and  there  is  always  a 
residuum  of  error  in  the  soundest  truth.  Therefore,  an 
error  is  fatal  only  when  it  is  hidden  from  the  white  light 
of  investigation.  Herein  lies  the  difference  between  the 


I54 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


modern  scientist  and  the  moralist.  The  former  holds 
nothing  sacred,  not  even  his  own  axioms;  the  latter  lays 
things  down  as  law  and  then  makes  it  a crime  to  doubt 
them. 

It  is  in  this  way  — by  submitting  every  idea  to  a search- 
ing, pitiless,  unending  examination  — that  the  world  is 
increasing  its  store  of  what  may  be  called,  for  the  sake  of 
clearness,  absolute  knowledge.  Error  always  precedes 
truth,  and  it  is  extremely  probable  that  the  vast  majority 
of  ideas  held  by  men  of  today  — even  the  sanest  and 
wisest  men  — are  delusions,  but  with  the  passing  of  the 
years  our  stock  of  truth  grows  larger  and  larger.  “ A 
conviction,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ always  has  its  history  — 
its  previous  forms,  its  tentative  forms,  its  states  of  error. 
It  becomes  a conviction,  indeed,  only  after  having  been 
not  a conviction,  and  then  hardly  a conviction.  No  doubt 
falsehood  is  one  of  these  embryonic  forms  of  conviction. 
Sometimes  only  a change  of  persons  is  needed  to  trans- 
form one  into  the  other.  That  which,  in  the  son,  is  a con- 
viction, was,  in  the  father,  still  a falsehood.” 1 The 
tendency  of  intelligent  men,  in  a word,  is  to  approach 
nearer  and  nearer  the  truth,  by  the  processes  of  rejection, 
revision  and  invention.  Many  old  ideas  are  rejected  by 
each  new  generation,  but  there  always  remain  a few  that 
survive.  We  no  longer  believe  with  the  cave-men  that  the 
thunder  is  the  voice  of  an  angry  god  and  the  lightning 
the  flash  of  his  sword,  but  we. still  believe,  as  they  did,  that 
wood  floats  upon  water,  that  seeds  sprout  and  give  forth 
plants,  that  a roof  keeps  off  the  rain  and  that  a child,  if 
it  lives  long  enough,  will  inevitably  grow  into  a man  or  a 


1 “ Der  Antichrist § 55. 


TRUTH 


155 

woman.  Such  ideas  may  be  called  truths.  If  we  deny 
them  we  must  deny  at  once  that  the  world  exists  and  that 
we  exist  ourselves. 

Nietzsche’s  discussion  of  these  problems  is  so  abstruse 
and  so  much  complicated  by  changes  in  view  that  it  would 
be  impossible  to  make  an  understandable  summary  of  it 
in  the  space  available  here.  In  his  first  important  book, 
“ Menschliches  allzu  Menschliches,”  he  devoted  himself, 
in  the  main,  to  pointing  out  errors  made  in  the  past,  with- 
out laying  down  any  very  definite  scheme  of  thought  for 
the  future.  In  the  early  stages  of  human  progress,  he  said, 
men  made  the  mistake  of  regarding  everything  that  was 
momentarily  pleasant  or  beneficial  as  absolutely  and 
eternally  true.  Herein  they  manifested  the  very  familiar 
human  weakness  for  rash  and  hasty  generalization,  and 
the  equally  familiar  tendenqy  to  render,  the  ideas  of  a given 
time  and  place  perpetual  and  permanent  by  erecting  them 
into  codes  of  morality  and  putting  them  into  the  mouths 
of  gods.  This,  he  pointed  out,  was  harmful,  for  a thing 
might  be  beneficial  to  the  men  of  today  and  fatal  to  the 
men  of  tomorrow.  Therefore,  he  argued  that  while  a 
certain  idea’s  effect  was  a good  criterion,  humanly  speaking, 
of  its  present  or  current  truth,  it  was  dangerous  to  assume 
that  this  effect  would  be  always  the  same,  and  that,  in 
consequence,  the  idea  itself  would  remain  true  forever. 

Not  until  the  days  of  Socrates,  said  Nietzsche,  did  men 
begin  to  notice  this  difference  between  imminent  truth  and 
eternal  truth.  The  notion  that  such  a distinction  existed 
made  its  way  very  slowly,  even  after  great  teachers  began 
to  teach  it,  but  in  the  end  it  was  accepted  by  enough  men 
to  give  it  genuine  weight.  Since  that  day  philosophy  and 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


*56 

science,  which  were  once  merely  different  names  for  the 
same  thing,  have  signified  two  separate  things.  It  is  the 
object  of  philosophy  to  analyze  happiness,  and  by  means 
of  the  knowledge  thus  gained,  to  devise  means  fcr  safe- 
guarding and  increasing  it.  In  consequence,  it  is  necessary 
for  philosophy  to  generalize  — to  assume  that  the  thing 
which  makes  men  happy  today  will  make  them  happy 
tomorrow.  Science,  on  the  contrary,  concerns  itself,  not 
with  things  of  the  uncertain  future,  but  with  things  of  the 
certain  present.  Its  object  is  to  examine  the  world  as  it 
exists  today,  to  uncover  as  many  of  its  secrets  as  possible, 
and  to  study  their  effect  upon  human  happiness.  In  other 
words,  philosophy  first  constructs  a scheme  of  happiness 
and  then  tries  to  fit  the  world  to  it,  while  science  studies 
the  world  with  no  other  object  in  view  than  the  increase 
of  knowledge,  and  with  full  confidence  that,  in  the  long 
run,  this  increase  of  knowledge  will  increase  efficiency 
and  in  consequence  happiness. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  science,  for  all  its  contempt 
for  fixed  schemes  of  happiness,  will  eventually  accomplish 
with  certainty  what  philosophy  — which  most  commonly 
swims  into  the  ken  of  the  average  man  as  morality  — is 
now  trying  to  do  in  a manner  that  is  not  only  crude  and 
unreasonable,  but  also  necessarily  unsuccessful.  In  a 
word,  just  so  soon  as  man’s  store  of  knowledge  grows  so 
large  that  he  becomes  complete  master  of  the  natural 
forces  which  work  toward  his  undoing,  he  will  be  perfectly 
happy.  Now,  Nietzsche  believed,  as  we  have  seen  in  past 
chapters,  that  man’s  instinctive  will  to  power  had  this 
same  complete  mastery  over  his  environment  as  its  ulti- 
mate object,  and  so  he  concluded  that  the  will  to  power 


TRUTH 


IS7 


might  be  relied  upon  to  lead  man  to  the  truth.  That  is 
to  say,  he  believed  that  there  was,  in  every  man  of  the 
higher  type  (the  only  type  he  thought  worth  discussing) 
an  instinctive  tendency  to  seek  the  true  as  opposed  to  the 
false,  that  this  instinct,  as  the  race  progressed,  grew  more 
and  more  accurate,  and  that  its  growing  accuracy  explained 
the  fact  that,  despite  the  opposition  of  codes  of  morality 
and  of  the  iron  hand  of  authority,  man  constantly  in- 
creased his  store  of  knowledge.  A thought,  he  said,  arose 
in  a man  without  his  initiative  or  volition,  and  was  nothing 
more  or  less  than  an  expression  of  his  innate  will  to  obtain 
power  over  his  environment  by  accurately  observing  and 
interpreting  it.  It  was  just  as  reasonable,  he  said,  to  say  It 
thinks  as  to  say  I think,1  because  every  intelligent  person 
knew  that  a man  couldn’t  control  his  thoughts.  Therefore, 
the  fact  that  these  thoughts,  in  the  long  run  and  consider- 
ing the  human  race  as  a whole,  tended  to  uncover  more  and 
more  truths  proved  that  the  will  to  power,  despite  the  dan- 
ger of  generalizing  from  its  manifestations,  grew  more  and 
more  accurate  and  so  worked  in  the  direction  of  absolute 
truth.  Nietzsche  believed  that  mankind  was  ever  the 
slave  of  errors,  but  he  held  that  the  number  of  errors 
tended  to  decrease.  When,  at  last,  truth  reigned  supreme 
and  there  were  no  more  errors,  the  superman  would  walk 
the  earth. 

Now  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  note  the  workings 
of  the  will  to  power  save  as  it  is  manifested  in  his  own 
instincts  and  thoughts,  and  therefore  Nietzsche,  in  his 
later  books,  urges  that  every  man  should  be  willing,  at  all 
times,  to  pit  his  own  feelings  against  the  laws  laid  down 

t “ Jenseits  von  Gut  und  Bose,"  VII. 


158 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


by  the  majority.  A man  should  steer  clear  of  rash  generali- 
zation from  his  own  experience,  but  he  should  be  doubly 
careful  to  steer  clear  of  the  generalizations  of  others.  The 
greatest  of  all  dangers  lies  in  subscribing  to  a thesis  without 
being  certain  of  its  truth.  “ This  not- wishing- to-see  what 
one  sees  ...  is  a primary  requisite  for  membership  in  a 
party,  in  any  sense  whatsoever.  Therefore,  the  party 
man  becomes  a liar  by  necessity.”  The  proper  attitude 
for  a human  being,  indeed,  is  chronic  dissent  and  skepti- 
cism. “ Zarathustra  is  a skeptic.  . . . Convictions  are 
prisons.  . . . The  freedom  from  every  kind  of  permanent 
conviction,  the  ability  to  search  freely,  belong  to  strength. 
. . . The  need  of  a belief,  of  something  that  is  uncondi- 
tioned ...  is  a sign  of  weakness.  The  man  of  belief  is 
necessarily  a dependent  man.  . . . His  instinct  gives  the 
highest  honor  to  self-abnegation.  He  does  not  belong  to 
himself,  but  to  the  author  of  the  idea  he  believes.”  1 It 
is  only  by  skepticism,  argues  Nietzsche,  that  we  can  hope 
to  make  any  progress.  If  all  men  accepted  without  ques- 
tion, the  dicta  of  some  one  supreme  sage,  it  is  plain  that 
there  could  be  no  further  increase  of  knowledge.  It  is 
only  by  constant  turmoil  and  conflict  and  exchange  of 
views  that  the  minute  granules  of  truth  can  be  separated 
from  the  vast  muck  heap  of  superstition  and  error.  Fixed 
truths,  in  the  long  run,  are  probably  more  dangerous  to 
intelligence  than  falsehoods.2 

This  argument,  I take  it,  scarcely  needs  greater  elucida- 
tion. Every  intelligent  man  knows  that  if  there  had  been 
no  brave  agnostics  to  defy  the  wrath  of  the  church  in  the 

*“  Dcr  Antichrist,"  § 54. 

* “ Mcnscklichcs  allzu  Mcnschliches,  ” § 4»3- 


TRUTH 


*5$ 

middle  ages,  the  whole  of  Christendom  would  still  wallow 
in  the  unspeakably  foul  morass  of  ignorance  which  had  its 
center,  during  that  black  time,  in  an  infallible  sovereign 
of  sovereigns.  Authority,  at  all  times  and  everywhere, 
means  sloth  and  degeneration.  It  is  only  doubt  that 
creates.  It  is  only  the  minority  that  counts. 

The  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  human  beings  are 
utterly  incapable  of  original  thought,  and  so  must,  per- 
force, borrow  their  ideas  or  submit  tamely  to  some  author- 
ity, explains  Nietzsche’s  violent  loathing  and  contempt 
for  the  masses.  The  average,  self-satisfied,  conservative, 
orthodox,  law-abiding  citizen  appeared  to  him  to  be  a 
being  but  little  raised  above  the  cattle  in  the  barn-yard. 
So  violent  was  this  feeling  that  every  idea  accepted  by  the 
majority  excited,  for  that  very  reason,  his  suspicion  and 
opposition.  “ What  everybody  believes,”  he  once  said, 
“ is  never  true.”  This  may  seem  like  a mere  voicing  of 
brobdingnagian  egotism,  but  as  a matter  of  fact,  the  same 
view  is  held  by  every  man  who  has  spent  any  time  investi- 
gating the  history  of  ideas.  “ Truth,”  said  Dr.  Osier 
a while  ago,  “ scarcely  ever  carries  the  struggle  for  accept- 
ance at  its  first  appearance.”  The  masses  are  always  a 
century  or  two  behind.  They  have  made  a virtue  of  their 
obtuseness  and  call  it  by  various  fine  names : conservatism, 
piety,  respectability,  faith.  The  nineteenth  century  wit- 
nessed greater  human  progress  than  all  the  centuries  before 
it  saw  or  even  imagined,  but  the  majority  of  white  men  of 
today  still  believe  in  ghosts,  still  fear  the  devil,  still  hold 
that  the  number  13  is  unlucky  and  still  picture  the  deity 
as  a patriarch  in  a white  beard,  surrounded  by  a choir  of 
resplendent  amateur  musicians.  “ We  think  a thing,” 


160  FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 

says  Prof.  Henry  Sedgwick,  “ because  all  other  people 
think  so ; or  because,  after  all,  we  do  think  so  ; or  because 
we  are  told  so,  and  think  we  must  think  so;  or  because 
we  once  thought  so,  and  think  we  still  think  so ; or  be- 
cause, having  thought  so,  we  think  we  will  think  so.” 
Naturally  enough,  Nietzsche  was  an  earnest  opponent 
of  the  theological  doctrine  of  free  will.  He  held,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  every  human  act  was  merely  the  effect  of 
the  will  to  power  reacting  against  environment,  and  in 
consequence  he  had  to  reject  absolutely  the  notion  of 
volition  and  responsibility.  A man,  he  argued,  was  not 
an  object  in  vacuo  and  his  acts,  thoughts,  impulses  and 
motives  could  not  be  imagined  without  imagining  some 
cause  for  them.  If  this  cause  came  from  without,  it  was 
clearly  beyond  his  control,  and  if  it  came  from  within  it 
was  no  less  so,  for  his  whole  attitude  of  mind,  his  instinc- 
tive habits  of  thoughts,  his  very  soul,  so-called,  were 
merely  attributes  that  had  been  handed  down  to  him, 
like  the  shape  of  his  nose  and  the  color  of  his  eyes,  from 
his  ancestors.  Nietzsche  held  that  the  idea  of  responsi- 
bility was  the  product  and  not  the  cause  of  the  idea  of 
punishment,  and  that  the  latter  was  nothing  more  than  a 
manifestation  of  primitive  man’s  will  to  power  — to  tri- 
umph over  his  fellows  by  making  them  suffer  the  handicap 
and  humiliation  of  pain.  “ Men  were  called  free,”  he 
said,  “ in  order  that  they  might  be  condemned  and  pun- 
ished. . . . When  we  immoralists  try  to  cleanse  psychol- 
ogy, history,  nature  and  sociology  of  these  notions,  we 
find  that  our  chief  enemies  are  the  theologians,  who,  with 
their  preposterous  idea  of  ‘ a moral  order  of  the  world,’ 
go  on  tainting  the  innocence  of  man’s  struggle  upward 


TRUTH 


161 


with  talk  of  punishment  and  guilt.  Christianity  is,  indeed, 
a hangman’s  metaphysic.” 1 As  a necessary  corollary 
of  this,  Nietzsche  denied  the  existence  of  any  plan  in  the 
cosmos.  Like  Haeckel,  he  believed  that  but  two  things 
existed  — energy  and  matter ; and  that  all  the  phenomena 
which  made  us  conscious  of  the  universe  were  nothing 
more  than  symptoms  of  the  constant  action  of  the  one 
upon  the  other.  Nothing  ever  happened  without  a cause, 
he  said,  and  no  cause  was  anything  other  than  the  effect 
of  some  previous  cause.  “ The  destiny  of  man,”  he  said, 
“ cannot  be  disentangled  from  the  destiny  of  everything 
else  in  existence,  past,  present  and  future.  . . . We  are 
a part  of  the  whole,  we  exist  in  the  whole.  ^ . . There  is 
nothing  which  could  judge,  measure  or  condemn  our  being, 
for  that  would  be  to  judge,  measure  and  condemn  the 
whole.  . . . But  there  is  nothing  outside  of  the  whole. 
. . . The  concept  of  God  has  hitherto  made  our  existence 
a crime.  . . . We  deny  God,  we  deny  responsibility  by 
denying  God : it  is  only  thereby  that  we  save  man.”  * 
Herein,  unluckily,  Nietzsche  fell  into  the  trap  which  has 
snapped  upon  Haeckel  and  every  other  supporter  of 
atheistic  determinism.  He  denied  that  the  human  will 
was  free  and  argued  that  every  human  action  was  inevi- 
table, and  yet  he  spent  his  whole  life  trying  to  convince 
his  fellow  men  that  they  should  do  otherwise  than  as  they 
did  in  fact.  In  a word,  he  held  that  they  had  no  control 
whatever  over  their  actions,  and  yet,  like  Moses,  Mo- 
hammed and  St.  Francis,  he  thundered  at  them  uproari- 
ously and  urged  them  to  turn  from  their  errors  and  repent. 

1 “ Gbtzenddmmerung VI.  * “ Gotzendammerung VI. 


VIII 


CIVILIZATION 

On  the  surface,  at  least,  the  civilization  of  today 
seems  to  be  moving  slowly  toward  two  goals.  One  is  the 
eternal  renunciation  of  war  and  the  other  is  universal 
brotherhood : one  is  “ peace  on  earth  ” and  the  other  is 
“ good  will  to  men.”  Five  hundred  years  ago  a states- 
man’s fame  rested  frankly  and  solely  upon  the  victories 
of  his  armies;  today  we  profess  to  measure  him  by  his 
skill  at  keeping  these  armies  in  barracks.  And  in  the 
internal  economy  of  all  civilized  states  we  find  today  some 
pretence  at  unrestricted  and  equal  suffrage.  In  times  past 
it  was  the  chief  concern  of  all  logicians  and  wiseacres  to 
maintain  the  proposition  that  God  reigned.  At  present, 
the  dominant  platitude  of  Christendom  — the  corner- 
stone of  practically  every  political  party  and  the  stock-in- 
trade  of  every  politician  — is  the  proposition  that  the 
people  rule. 

Nietzsche  opposed  squarely  both  the  demand  for  peace 
and  the  demand  for  equality,  and  his  opposition  was 
grounded  upon  two  arguments.  In  the  first  place,  he  said, 
both  demands  were  rhetorical  and  insincere  and  all  in- 
telligent men  knew  that  neither  would  ever  be  fully  satis- 
fied. In  the  second  place,  he  said,  it  would  be  ruinous 

^ i6* 


CIVILIZATION 


163 


to  the  race  if  they  were.  That  is  to  say,  he  believed  that 
war  was  not  only  necessary,  but  also  beneficial,  and  that 
the  natural  system  of  castes  was  not  only  beneficent,  but 
also  inevitable.  In  the  demand  for  universal  peace  he 
saw  only  the  yearning  of  the  weak  and  useless  for  pro- 
tection against  the  righteous  exploitation  of  the  useful 
and  strong.  In  the  demand  for  equality  he  saw  only  the 
same  thing.  Both  demands,  he  argued,  controverted 
and  combated  that  upward  tendency  which  finds  expres- 
sion in  the  law  of  natural  selection. 

“ The  order  of  castes,”  said  Nietzsche,  “ is  the  dominat- 
ing law  of  nature,  against  which  no  merely  human  agency 
may  prevail.  In  every  healthy  society  there  are  three 
broad  classes,  each  of  which  has  its  own  morality,  its  own 
work,  its  own  notion  of  perfection  and  its  own  sense  of 
mastery.  The  first  class  comprises  those  who  are  ob- 
viously superior  to  the  mass  intellectually;  the  second 
includes  those  whose  eminence  is  chiefly  muscular,  and 
the  third  is  made  up  of  the  mediocre.  The  third  class, 
very  naturally,  is  the  most  numerous,  but  the  first  is  the 
most  powerful. 

“ To  this  highest  caste  belongs  the  privilege  of  repre- 
senting beauty,  happiness  and  goodness  on  earth.  . . . 
Its  members  accept  the  world  as  they  find  it  and  make  the 
best  of  it.  . . . They  find  their  happiness  in  those  things 
which,  to  lesser  men,  would  spell  ruin  — in  the  laby- 
rinth, in  severity  toward  themselves  and  others,  in  effort. 
Their  delight  is  self-governing:  with  them  asceticism 
becomes  naturalness,  necessity,  instinct.  A difficult  task 
is  regarded  by  them  as  a privilege ; to  play  with  burdens 
which  would  crush  others  to  death  is  their  recreation. 


164 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


They  are  the  most  venerable  species  of  men.  They  are 
the  most  cheerful,  the  most  amiable.  They  rule  because 
they  are  what  they  are.  They  are  not  at  liberty  to  be 
second  in  rank. 

“ The  second  caste  includes  the  guardians  and  keepers 
of  order  and  security  — the  warriors,  the  nobles,  the  king 
— - above  all,  as  the  highest  types  of  warrior,  the  judges  and 
defenders  of  the  law.  They  execute  the  mandates  of  the 
first  caste,  relieving  the  latter  of  all  that  is  coarse  and 
menial  in  the  work  of  ruling. 

“ At  the  bottom  are  the  workers  — the  men  of 
handicraft,  trade,  agriculture  and  the  greater  part  of  art 
and  science.  It  is  the  law  of  nature  that  they  should  be 
public  utilities  — that  they  should  be  wheels  and  functions. 
T e only  kind  of  happiness  of  which  they  are  capable 
makes  intelligent  machines  of  them.  For  the  mediocre, 
it  is  happiness  to  be  mediocre.  In  them  the  mastery  of 
one  thing  — i.  e.  specialism  — is  an  instinct. 

“ It  is  unworthy  of  a profound  intellect  to  see  in  medi- 
ocrity itself  an  objection.  It  is,  indeed,  a necessity  of 
human  existence,  for  only  in  the  presence  of  a horde  of 
average  men  is  the  exceptional  man  a possibility.  . . . 

“ Whom  do  I hate  most  among  the  men  of  today  ? 
The  socialist  who  undermines  the  workingman’s  healthy 
instincts,  who  takes  from  him  his  feeling  of  contentedness 
with  his  existence,  who  makes  him  envious,  who  teaches 
him  revenge.  . . . There  is  no  wrong  in  unequal  rights : it 
lies  in  the  vain  pretension  to  equal  rights.”  1 

It  is  obvious  from  this  that  Nietzsche  was  an  ardent 
believer  in  aristocracy,  but  it  is  also  obvious  that  he  was 

“ Der  Atitichrist,"  § 57. 


CIVILIZATION 


165 

not  a believer  in  the  thing  which  passes  for  aristocracy 
in  the  world  today.  The  nobility  of  Europe  belongs, 
not  to  his  first  class,  but  to  his  second  class.  It  is  essentially 
military  and  legal,  for  in  themselves  its  members  are  puny 
and  inefficient,  and  it  is  only  the  force  of  law  that  main- 
tains them  in  their  inheritance. 

The  fundamental  doctrine  of  civilized  law,  as  we  know 
it  today,  is  the  proposition  that  what  a man  has  once 
acquired  shall  belong  to  him  and  his  heirs  forever,  without 
need  on  his  part  or  theirs  to  defend  it  personally  against 
predatory  rivals.  This  transfer  of  the  function  of  defense 
from  the  individual  to  the  state  naturally  exalts  the  state’s 
professional  defenders  — that  is,  her  soldiers  and  judges 
— and  so  it  is  not  unnatural  to  find  the  members  of  this 
class,  and  their  parasites,  in  control  of  most  of  the 
world’s  governments  and  in  possession  of  a large  share  of 
the  world’s  wealth,  power  and  honors.1  To  Nietzsche  this 
seemed  grotesquely  illogical  and  unfair.  He  saw  that 
this  ruling  class  expended  its  entire  energy  in  combating 


1 In  “The  Governance  of  England,”  (London:  1904)  Sidney  Low 
points  out  (chap.  X)  that,  despite  the  rise  of  democracy,  the  govern- 
ment of  Great  Britain  is  still  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  landed  gentry 
and  nobility.  The  members  of  this  class  plainly  owe  their  power  to  the 
military  prowess  of  their  ancestors,  and  their  identity  with  the  present 
military  and  judicial  class  is  obvious.  The  typical  M.  P.,  in  fact,  also 
writes  “ J.  P.”  after  his  name  and  “Capt.”  or  “Col.”  before  it.  The 
examples  of  Russia,  Germany,  Japan,  Austria,  Italy,  Spain  and  the 
Latin-American  republics  scarcely  need  be  mentioned.  In  China  the 
military,  judicial  and  legislative-executive  functions  are  always  combined, 
and  in  the  United  States,  while  the  military  branch  of  the  second  caste 
is  apparently  impotent,  it  is  plain  that  the  balance  of  legislative  power 
in  every  state  and  in  the  national  legislature  is  held  by  lawyers,  just  as 
tfte  final  determination  of  all  laws  rests  with  judges. 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


1 66 

experiment  and  change  and  that  the  aristocracy  it  begot 
and  protected  — an  aristocracy  often  identical,  very  natu- 
rally, with  itself  — tended  to  become  more  and  more  unfit 
and  helpless  and  more  and  more  a bar  to  the  ready  recog- 
nition and  unrestrained  functioning  of  the  only  true 
aristocracy  — that  of  efficiency. 

Nietzsche  pointed  out  that  one  of  the  essential  absurdi- 
ties of  a constitutional  aristocracy  was  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  it  hedged  itself  about  with  purely  artificial 
barriers.  Next  only  to  its  desire  to  maintain  itself  without 
actual  personal  effort  was  its  jealous  endeavor  to  prevent 
accessions  to  its  ranks.  Nothing,  indeed,  disgusts  the 
traditional  belted  earl  quite  so  much  as  the  ennobling 
of  some  upstart  brewer  or  iron-master.  This  exclusive- 
ness, from  Nietzsche’s  point  of  view,  seemed  ridiculous 
and  pernicious,  for  a true  aristocracy  must  be  ever  willing 
and  eager  to  welcome  to  its  ranks  — and  to  enroll  in  fact, 
automatically  — all  who  display  those  qualities  which 
make  a man  extraordinarily  fit  and  efficient.  There  should 
always  be,  he  said,  a free  and  constant  interchange  of  indi- 
viduals between  the  three  natural  castes  of  men.  It  should 
be  always  possible  for  an  abnormally  efficient  man  of  the 
slave  class  to  enter  the  master  class,  and,  by  the  same 
token,  accidental  degeneration  or  incapacity  in  the  master 
class  should  be  followed  by  swift  and  merciless  reduction 
to  the  ranks  of  slaves.  Thus,  those  aristocracies  which 
presented  the  incongruous  spectacle  of  imbeciles  being 
intrusted  with  the  affairs  of  government  seemed  to  him 
utterly  abhorrent,  and  those  schemes  of  caste  which  made  a 
mean  birth  an  offset  to  high  intelligence  seemed  no  less  so. 

So  long  as  man’s  mastery  of  the  forces  of  nature  is 


CIVILIZATION 


167 


incomplete,  said  Nietzsche,  it  will  be  necessary  for  the 
vast  majority  of  human  beings  to  spend  their  lives  in 
either  supplementing  those  natural  forces  which  are 
partly  under  control  or  in  opposing  those  which  are  still 
unleashed.  The  business  of  tilling  the  soil,  for  example, 
is  still  largely  a matter  of  muscular  exertion,  despite  the 
vast  improvement  in  farm  implements,  and  it  will  probably 
remain  so  for  centuries  to  come.  Since  such  labor  is 
necessarily  mere  drudgery,  and  in  consequence  unpleasant, 
it  is  plain  that  it  should  be  given  over  to  men  whose 
realization  of  its  unpleasantness  is  least  acute.  Going 
further,  it  is  plain  that  this  work  will  be  done  with  less 
and  less  revolt  and  less  and  less  driving,  as  we  evolve  a 
class  whose  ambition  to  engage  in  more  inviting  pursuits 
grows  smaller  and  smaller.  In  a word,  the  ideal  plough- 
man is  one  who  has  no  thought  of  anything  higher  and 
better  than  ploughing.  Therefore,  argued  Nietzsche, 
the  proper  performance  of  the  manual  labor  of  the  world 
makes  it  necessary  that  we  have  a laboring  class,  which 
means  a class  content  to  obey  without  fear  or  question. 

This  doctrine  brought  down  upon  Nietzsche’s  head 
the  pious  wrath  of  all  the  world’s  humanitarians,  but 
empiric  experiment  has  more  than  once  proved  its  truth. 
The  history  of  the  hopelessly  futile  and  fatuous  effort  to 
improve  the  negroes  of  the  Southern  United  States  by 
education  affords  one  such  proof.  It  is  apparent,  on  brief 
reflection,  that  the  negro,  no  matter  how  much  he  is  edu- 
cated, must  remain,  as  a race,  in  a condition  of  subservi- 
ence; that  he  must  remain  the  inferior  of  the  stronger 
and  more  intelligent  white  man  so  long  as  he  retains 
racial  differentiation.  Therefore,  the  effort  to  educate 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


1 68 

him  has  awakened  in  his  mind  ambitions  and  aspirations 
which,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  must  go  unrealized, 
and  so,  while  gaining  nothing  whatever  materially,  he  has 
lost  all  his  old  contentment,  peace  of  mind  and  happiness. 
Indeed,  it  is  a commonplace  of  observation  in  the  United 
States  that  the  educated  and  refined  negro  is  invariably 
a hopeless,  melancholy,  embittered  and  despairing  man. 

Nietzsche,  to  resume,  regarded  it  as  absolutely  essential 
that  there  be  a class  of  laborers  or  slaves  — his  “ third 
caste  ” — and  was  of  the  opinion  that  such  a class  would 
exist  upon  earth  so  long  as  the  human  race  survived.  Its 
condition,  compared  to  that  of  the  ruling  class,  would 
vary  but  slightly,  he  thought,  with  the  progress  of  the 
years.  As  man’s  mastery  of  nature  increased,  the  laborer 
would  find  his  task  less  and  less  painful,  but  he  would 
always  remain  a fixed  distance  behind  those  who  ruled 
him.  Therefore,  Nietzsche,  in  his  philosophy,  gave  no 
thought  to  the  desires  and  aspirations  of  the  laboring  class, 
because,  as  we  have  just  seen,  he  held  that  a man  could 
not  properly  belong  to  this  class  unless  his  desires  and 
aspirations  were  so  faint  or  so  well  under  the  control  of 
the  ruling  class  that  they  might  be  neglected.  All  of  the 
Nietzschean  doctrines  and  ideas  apply  only  to  the  ruling 
class.  It  was  at  the  top,  he  argued,  that  mankind  grew. 
It  was  only  in  the  ideas  of  those  capable  of  original  thought 
that  progress  had  its  source.  William  the  Conqueror 
was  of  far  more  importance,  though  he  was  but  a single 
man,  than  all  the  other  Normans  of  his  generation  taken 
together. 

Nietzsche  was  well  aware  that  his  “ first  caste  ” was 
necessarily  small  in  numbers  and  that  there  was  a strong 


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169 


tendency  for  its  members  to  drop  out  of  it  and  seek  ease 
and  peace  in  the  castes  lower  down.  “ Life,”  he  said,  “ is 
always  hardest  toward  the  summit  — the  cold  increases, 
the  responsibility  increases.” 1 But  to  the  truly  effi- 
cient man  these  hardships  are  but  spurs  to  effort.  His 
joy  is  in  combating  and  in  overcoming  — in  pitting  his 
will  to  power  against  the  laws  and  desires  of  the  rest  of 
humanity.  “ I do  not  advise  you  to  labor,”  says  Zara- 
thustra,  “ but  to  fight.  I do  not  advise  you  to  compromise 
and  make  peace,  but  to  conquer.  Let  your  labor  be 
fighting  and  your  peace  victory.  ...  You  say  that  a 
good  cause  will  hallow  even  war  ? I tell  you  that  a good 
war  hallows  every  cause.  War  and  courage  have  done 
more  great  things  than  charity.  Not  your  pity,  but  your 
bravery  lifts  up  those  about  you.  Let  the  little  girlies 
tell  you  that  ‘ good  ’ means  ‘ sweet  ’ and  ‘ touching.’  I 
tell  you  that  ‘ good  ’ means  ‘ brave.’  . . . The  slave 
rebels  against  hardships  and  calls  his  rebellion  superi- 
ority. Let  your  superiority  be  an  acceptance  of  hardships. 
Let  your  commanding  be  an  obeying.  . . . Let  your 
highest  thought  be : ‘ Man  is  something  to  be  surpassed.’ 
...  I do  not  advise  you  to  love  your  neighbor  — the 
nearest  human  being.  I advise  you  rather  to  flee  from 
the  nearest  and  love  the  furthest  human  being.  Higher 
than  love  to  your  neighbor  is  love  to  the  higher  man  that 
is  to  come  in  the  future.  . . . Propagate  yourself  upward. 
Thus  live  your  life.  What  are  many  years  worth?  I do 
not  spare  you.  . . . Die  at  the  right  time  ! ” 2 

1 “ Der  Antichrist''  § 55. 

2 The  quotations  are  from  various  chapters  in  the  first  part  of  “ Also 
Sprach  Zarathus^ra  " 


170 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


The  average  man,  said  Nietzsche,  is  almost  entirely 
lacking  in  this  gorgeous,  fatalistic  courage  and  sublime 
egotism.  He  is  ever  reluctant  to  pit  his  private  convictions 
and  yearnings  against  those  of  the  mass  of  men.  He  is 
either  afraid  to  risk  the  consequences  of  originality  or 
fearful  that,  since  the  majority  of  his  fellows  disagree  with 
him,  he  must  be  wrong.  Therefore,  no  matter  how 
strongly  an  unconventional  idea  may  possess  a man,  he 
commonly  seeks  to  combat  it  and  throttle  it,  and  the 
ability  to  do  this  with  the  least  possible  expenditure  of 
effort  we  call  self-control.  The  average  man,  said  Nietzsche, 
has  the  power  of  self-control  well  developed,  and  in  conse- 
quence he  seldom  contributes  anything  positive  to  the 
thought  of  his  age  and  almost  never  attempts  to  oppose  it. 

We  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter  that  if  every 
man,  without  exception,  were  of  this  sort,  all  human 
progress  would  cease,  because  the  ideas  of  one  generation 
would  be  handed  down  unchanged  to  the  next  and  there 
would  be  no  effort  whatever  to  improve  the  conditions  of 
existence  by  the  only  possible  method  — constant  experi- 
ment with  new  ideas.  Therefore,  it  follows  that  the  world 
must  depend  for  its  advancement  upon  those  revolutionists 
who,  instead  of  overcoming  their  impulse  to  go  counter  to 
convention,  give  it  free  rein.  Of  such  is  Nietzsche’s  “ first 
caste  ” composed.  It  is  plain  that  among  the  two  lower 
castes,  courage  of  this  sort  is  regarded,  not  as  an  evidence 
of  strength,  but  as  a proof  of  weakness.  The  man  who 
outrages  conventions  is  a man  who  lacks  self-control,  and 
the  majority,  by  a process  we  have  examined  in  our  con- 
sideration of  slave-morality,  has  exalted  self-control,  which, 
at  bottom,  is  the  antithesis  of  courage,  into  a place  of 


CIVILIZATION 


171 

honor  higher  than  that  belonging,  by  right,  to  courage 
itself. 

But  Nietzsche  pointed  out  that  the  act  of  denying  or 
combating  accepted  ideas  is  a thing  which  always  tends 
to  inspire  other  acts  of  the  same  sort.  It  is  true  enough 
that  a revolutionary  idea,  so  soon  as  it  replaces  an  old 
convention  and  obtains  the  sanction  of  the  majority,  ceases 
to  be  revolutionary  and  becomes  itself  conventional,  but 
all  the  same  the  mere  fact  that  it  has  succeeded  gives 
courage  to  those  who  harbor  other  revolutionary  ideas 
and  inspires  them  to  give  these  ideas  voice.  Thus,  it 
happens  that  courage  breeds  itself,  and  that,  in  times  of 
great  conflict,  of  no  matter  what  sort,  the  world  produces 
more  than  an  average  output  of  originality,  or,  as  we  more 
commonly  denominate  it,  genius.  In  this  manner  Nietzsche 
accounted  for  a fact  that  had  been  noticed  by  many  men 
before  him : that  such  tremendous  struggles  as  the  French 
Revolution  and  the  American  Civil  War  are  invariably 
followed  by  eras  of  diligent  inquiry,  of  bold  overturning 
of  existing  institutions  and  of  marked  progress.  People 
become  accustomed  to  unrestrained  combat  and  so  the 
desirability  of  self-control  becomes  less  insistent. 

Nietzsche  had  a vast  contempt  for  what  he  called  “ the 
green-grazing  happiness  of  the  herd.”  Its  strong  morality 
and  its  insistence  upon  the  doctrine  that  whatever  is,  is 
right  — that  “ God’s  in  his  heaven ; all’s  well  with  the 
world  ” — revolted  him.  He  held  that  the  so-called  rights 
of  the  masses  had  no  justifiable  existence,  since  everything 
they  asserted  as  a right  was  an  assertion,  more  or  less 
disguised,  of  the  doctrine  that  the  unfit  should  survive. 
“ There  are,”  he  said,  “ only  three  ways  in  which  the 


172 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


masses  appear  to  me  to  deserve  a glance : first,  as  blurred 
copies  of  their  betters,  printed  on  bad  paper  and  from 
worn  out  plates;  secondly,  as  a necessary  opposition  to 
stimulate  the  master  class,  and  thirdly,  as  instruments 
in  the  hands  of  the  master  class.  Further  than  this  I hand 
them  over  to  statistics — -and  the  devil.”  1 Kant’s  proposal 
that  the  morality  of  every  contemplated  action  be 
tested  by  the  question,  “ Suppose  everyone  did  as  I pro- 
pose to  do  ? ” seemed  utterly  ridiculous  to  Nietzsche 
because  he  saw  that  “ everyone  ” always  opposed  the  very 
things  which  meant'  progress;  and  Kant’s  corollary  that 
the  sense  of  duty  contemplated  in  this  dictum  was  “ the 
obligation  to  act  in  reverence  for  law,”  proved  to  Nietzsche 
merely  that  both  duty  and  law  were  absurdities.  “ Con- 
tumely,” he  caid,  “ always  falls  upon  those  who  break 
through  some  custom  or  convention.  Such  men,  in  fact, 
are  called  criminals.  Everyone  who  overthrows  an  existing 
law  is,  at  the  start,  regarded  as  a wicked  man.  Long 
afterward,  when  it  is  found  that  this  law  was  bad  and  so 
cannot  be  re-established,  the  epithet  is  changed.  All 
history  treats  almost  exclusively  of  wicked  men  who,  in 
the  course  of  time,  have  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  good 
men.  All  progress  is  the  result  of  successful  crimes.”  2 

Dr.  Turck,3  Miss  Paget,  M.  Nordau  and  other  critics 
see  in  all  this  good  evidence  that  Nietzsche  was  a criminal 
at  heart.  At  the  bottom  of  all  philosophies,  says  Miss 
Paget,4  there  is  always  one  supreme  idea.  Sometimes  it 

1 “ Vom  Nutzen  und  Nachtheil  der  Historie  filr  das  Leben 

2 “ Morgenrote  ,”  § 20. 

5 “ Friedrich  Nietzsche  und  seine  philosophische  IrrwegeR  Leipsic,  1891. 

* North  American  Review , Dec.,  1904. 


CIVILIZATION 


173 


is  a conception  of  nature,  sometimes  it  is  a religious  faith 
and  sometimes  it  is  a theory  of  truth.  In  Nietzsche’s  case 
it  is  “ my  taste.”  He  is  always  irritated : “ I dislike,” 
“ / hate,”  “ I want  to  get  rid  of  ” appear  on  every  page 
of  his  writings.  He  delights  in  ruthlessness,  his  fellow 
men  disgust  him,  his  physical  senses  are  acute,  he  has  a 
sick  ego.  For  that  reason  he  likes  singularity,  the  lonely 
Alps,  classic  literature  and  Bizet’s  “ clear  yellow  ” music. 
Turck  argues  that  Nietzsche  was  a criminal  because  he 
got  pleasure  out  of  things  which  outraged  the  majority  of 
his  fellow  men,  and  Nordau,  in  supporting  this  idea,  shows 
that  it  is  possible  for  a man  to  experience  and  approve 
criminal  impulses  and  still  never  act  them : that  there  are 
criminals  of  the  chair  as  well  as  of  the  dark  lantern  and 
sandbag.  The  answer  to  all  of  this,  of  course,  is  the  fact 
that  the  same  method  of  reasoning  would  convict  every 
original  thinker  the  world  has  ever  known  of  black  felony : 
that  it  would  make  Martin  Luther  a criminal  as  well  as 
Jack  Sheppard,  John  the  Baptist  as  well  as  the  Borgias, 
and  Galileo  as  well  as  Judas  Iscariot ; that  it  would  justify 
the  execution  of  all  the  sublime  company  of  heroes  who 
have  been  done  to  death  for  their  opinions,  from  Jesus 
Christ  down  the  long  line. 


IX 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 

Nietzsche’s  faithful  sister,  with  almost  comical  and 
essentially  feminine  disgust,  bewails  the  fact  that,  as  a 
very  young  man,  the  philosopher  became  acquainted  with 
the  baleful  truths  set  forth  in  Schopenhauer’s  immortal 
essay  “ On  Women.”  That  this  daring  work  greatly 
influenced  him  is  true,  and  that  he  subscribed  to  its  chief 
arguments  all  the  rest  of  his  days  is  also  true,  but  it  is  far 
from  true  to  say  that  his  view  of  the  fair  sex  was  borrowed 
bodily  from  Schopenhauer  or  that  he  would  have  written 
otherwise  than  as  he  did  if  Schopenhauer  kad  never  lived. 
Nietzsche’s  conclusions  regarding  women  were  the  inevi- 
table result,  indeed,  of  his  own  philosophical  system.  It 
is  impossible  to  conceive  a man  who  held  his  opinions  of 
morality  and  society  laying  down  any  other  doctrines  of 
femininity  and  matrimony  than  those  he  scattered  through 
his  books. 

Nietzsche  believed  that  there  was  a radical  difference 
between  the  mind  of  man  and  the  mind  of  woman  and 
that  the  two  sexes  reacted  in  diametrically  different  ways 
to  those  stimuli  which  make  up  what  might  be  called  the 
clinical  picture  of  human  society.  It  is  the  function  of 
man,  he  said,  to  wield  a sword  in  humanity’s  battle  with 
everything  that  makes  life  on  earth  painful  or  precarious. 


i74 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


175 


It  is  the  function  of  woman,  not  to  fight  herself,  but  to 
provide  fresh  warriors  for  the  fray.  Thus  the  exercise  of 
the  will  to  exist  is  divided  between  the  two : the  man 
seeking  the  welfare  of  the  race  as  he  actually  sees  it  and 
the  woman  seeking  the  welfare  of  generations  yet  unborn. 
Of  course,  it  is  obvious  that  this  division  is  by  no  means 
clearly  marked,  because  the  man,  in  struggling  for  power 
over  his  environment,  necessarily  improves  the  conditions 
under  which  his  children  live,  and  the  woman,  working 
for  her  children,  often  benefits  herself.  But  all  the  same 
the  distinction  is  a good  one  and  empiric  observation  bears 
it  out.  As  everyone  who  has  given  a moment’s  thought 
to  the  subject  well  knows,  a man’s  first  concern  in  the 
world  is  to  provide  food  and  shelter  for  himself  and  his 
family,  while  a woman’s  foremost  duty  is  to  bear  and 
rear  children.  “ Thus,”  said  Nietzsche,  “ would  I have 
man  and  woman : the  one  fit  for  warfare,  the  other  fit  for 
giving  birth;  and  both  fit  for  dancing  with  head  and 
legs  ” 1 — that  is  to  say : both  capable  of  doing  their  share 
of  the  race’s  work,  mental  and  physical,  with  conscious 
and  superbundant  efficiency. 

Nietzsche  points  out  that,  in  the  racial  economy,  the 
place  of  woman  may  be  compared  to  that  of  a slave- 
nation,  while  the  position  of  man  resembles  that  of  a 
master-nation.  We  have  seen  how  a weak  nation,  unable, 
on  account  of  its  weakness,  to  satisfy  its  will  to  survive 
and  thirst  for  power  by  forcing  its  authority  upon  other 
nations,  turns  to  the  task  of  keeping  these  other  nations, 
as  much  as  possible,  from  enforcing  their  authority  upon 
it.  Realizing  that  it  cannot  rule,  but  must  serve,  it  en- 

“ Also  sprach  Zarathustra?'  III. 


176 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


deavors  to  make  the  conditions  of  its  servitude  as  bearable 
as  possible.  This  effort  is  commonly  made  in  two  ways : 
first  by  ostensibly  renouncing  its  desire  to  rule,  and 
secondly,  by  attempts  to  inoculate  its  powerful  neighbors 
with  its  ideas  in  subterranean  and  round-about  ways,  so 
as  to  avoid  arousing  their  suspicion  and  opposition.  It 
becomes,  in  brief,  humble  and  cunning,  and  with  its 
humility  as  a cloak,  it  seeks  to  pit  its  cunning  against  the 
sheer  might  of  those  it  fears. 

The  position  of  women  in  the  world  is  much  the  same. 
The  business  of  bearing  and  rearing  children  is  destructive 
to  their  physical  strength,  and  in  consequence  makes  it 
impossible  for  them  to  prevail  by  force  vhen  their  ideas 
and  those  of  men  happen  to  differ.  To  take  away  the 
sting  of  this  incapacity,  they  make  a virtue  of  it,  and  it 
becomes  modesty,  humility,  self-sacrifice  and  fidelity;  to 
win  in  spite  of  it  they  cultivate  cunning,  which  commonly 
takes  the  form  of  hypocrisy,  cajolery,  dissimulation  and 
more  or  less  masked  appeals  to  the  masculine  sexual 
instinct.  All  of  this  is  so  often  observed  in  every-day  life 
that  it  has  become  commonplace.  A woman  is  physically 
unable  to  force  a man  to  do  as  she  desires,  but  her  very 
inability  to  do  so  becomes  a sentimental  weapon  against 
him,  and  her  blandishments  do  the  rest.  The  spectacle 
of  a strong  man  ruled  by  a weak  woman  is  no  rare  one 
certainly,  and  Samson  was  neither  the  first  nor  last  giant 
to  fall  before  a Delilah.  There  is  scarcely  a household  in 
all  the  world,  in  truth,  in  which  the  familiar  drama  is  not 
being  acted  and  reacted  day  after  day. 

Now,  it  is  plain  from  the  foregoing  that,  though  women’s 
business  in  the  world  is  of  such  a character  that  it  inevi- 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


177 


tably  leads  to  physical  degeneration,  her  constant  need  to 
pvercome  the  effects  of  this  degeneration  by  cunning 
produces  constant  mental  activity,  which,  by  the  law  of 
exercise,  should  produce,  in  turn,  great  mental  efficiency. 
This  conclusion,  in  part,  is  perfectly  correct,  for  women, 
as  a sex,  are  shrewd,  resourceful  and  acute ; but  the  very 
fact  that  they  are  always  concerned  with  imminent  prob- 
lems and  that,  in  consequence,  they  are  unaccustomed  to 
dealing  with  the  larger  riddles  of  life,  makes  their  mental 
attitude  essentially  petty.  This  explains  the  circumstance 
that  despite  their  mental  suppleness,  they  are  not  genuinely 
strong  intellectually.  Indeed,  the  very  contrary  is  true. 
Women’s  constant  thought  is,  not  to  lay  down  broad 
principles  of  right  and  wrong;  not  to  place  the  whole 
world  in  harmony  with  some  great  scheme  of  justice; 
not  to  consider  the  future  of  nations;  not  to  make  two 
blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  before ; but  to  deceive, 
influence,  sway  and  please  men.  Normally,  their  weak- 
ness makes  masculine  protection  necessary  to  their 
existence  and  to  the  exercise  of  their  overpowering  maternal 
instinct,  and  so  their  whole  effort  is  to  obtain  this  protection 
in  the  easiest  way  possible.  The  net  result  is  that  femi- 
nine morality  is  a morality  of  opportunism  and  imminent 
expediency,  and  that  the  normal  woman  has  no  respect 
for,  and  scarcely  any  conception  of  abstract  truth.  Thus 
is  proved  the  fact  noted  by  Schopenhauer  and  many 
other  observers:  that  a woman  seldom  manifests  any 
true  sense  of  justice  or  of  honor. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  set  forth  this  idea  in  greater  detail, 
because  everyone  is  familiar  with  it  and  proofs  of  its 
accuracy  are  supplied  in  infinite  abundance  by  common 


1 78 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


observation.  Nietzsche  accepted  it  as  demonstrated. 
When  he  set  out  to  pursue  the  subject  further,  he  rejected 
entirely  the  Schopenhauerean  corollary  that  man  should 
ever  regard  woman  as  his  enemy,  and  should  seek,  by  all 
means  within  his  power,  to  escape  her  insidious  influence. 
Such  a notion  naturally  outraged  the  philosopher  of  the 
superman.  He  was  never  an  advocate  of  running  away  : 
to  all  the  facts  of  existence  he  said  “ yes.”  His  ideal  was 
not  resignation  or  flight,  but  an  intelligent  defiance  and 
opposition.  Therefore,  he  argued  that  man  should 
accept  woman  as  a natural  opponent  arrayed  against  him 
for  the  benevolent  purpose  of  stimulating  him  to  constant 
efficiency.  Opposition,  he  pointed  out,  was  a necessary 
forerunner  of  function,  and  in  consequence  the  fact  that 
woman  spent  her  entire  effort  in  a ceaseless  endeavor  to 
undermine  and  change  the  will  of  man,  merely  served  to 
make  this  will  alert  and  strong,  and  so  increased  man’s 
capacity  for  meeting  and  overcoming  the  enemies  of  his 
existence. 

A man  conscious  of  his  strength,  observes  Nietzsche, 
need  have  no  fear  of  women.  It  is  only  the  man  who  finds 
himself  utterly  helpless  in  the  face  of  feminine  cajolery 
that  must  cry,  “ Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan ! ” and  flee. 
“ It  is  only  the  most  sensual  men,”  he  says,  “ who  have  to 
shun  women  and  torture  their  bodies.”  The  normal, 
healthy  man, .despite  the  strong  appeal  which  women 
make  to  him  by  their  subtle  putting  forward  of  the  sexual 
idea  — visually  as  dress,  coquetry  and  what  not  — still 
keeps  a level  head.  He  is  strong  enough  to  weather  the 
sexual  storm.  But  the  man  who  cannot  do  this,  who 
experiences  no  normal  reaction  in  the  direction  of  guarded- 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


179 


ness  and  caution  and  reason,  must  either  abandon  him- 
self utterly  as  a helpless  slave  to  woman’s  instinct  of  race- 
preservation,  and  so  become  a bestial  voluptuary,  or 
avoid  temptation  altogether  and  so  become  a celibate.1 

There  is  nothing  essentially  evil  in  woman’s  effort  to 
combat  and  control  man’s  will  by  constantly  suggesting 
the  sexual  idea  to  him,  because  it  is  necessary,  for  the 
permanence  of  the  race,  that  this  idea  be  presented  fre- 
quently and  powerfully.  Therefore,  the  conflict  between 
masculine  and  feminine  ideals  is  to  be  regarded,  not  as  a 
lamentable  battle,  in  which  one  side  is  right  and  the  other 
wrong,  but  a convenient  means  of  providing  that  stimula- 
tion-by-opposition without  which  all  function,  and  in 
consequence  all  progress,  would  cease.  “ The  man  who 
regards  women  as  an  enemy  to  be  avoided,”  says  Nietzsche, 
“ betrays  an  unbridled  lust  which  loathes  not  only  itself, 
but  also  its  means.” 2 

There  are,  of  course,  occasions  when  the  feminine 
influence,  by  its  very  subtlety,  works  harm  to  the  higher 
sort  of  men.  It  is  dangerous  for  a man  to  love  too  violently 
and  it  is  dangerous,  too,  for  him  to  be  loved  too  much. 
“ The  natural  inclination  of  women  to  a quiet,  uniform 
and  peaceful  existence  ” — that  is  to  say,  to  a slave- 


1 Nietzsche  saw,  of  course  (“  The  Genealogy  of  Morals,”  III),  that 
temporary  celibacy  was  frequently  necessary  to  men  with  peculiarly 
difficult  and  vitiating  tasks  ahead  of  them.  The  philosopher  who 
sought  to  solve  world  riddles,  he  said,  had  need  to  steer  clear  of  women, 
for  reasons  which  appealed,  with  equal  force,  to  the  athlete  who  sought 
to  perform  great  feats  of  physical  strength.  It  is  obvious,  however, 
that  this  desire  to  escape  distraction  and  drain  differs  vastly  from  ethical 
celibacy. 

* “ Morgenrote ,”  § 346. 


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FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


morality  — “ operates  adversely  to  the  heroic  impulse  of 
the  masculine  free  spirit.  Without  being  aware  of  it, 
women  act  like  a person  who  would  remove  stones  from 
the  path  of  a mineralogist,  lest  his  feet  should  come  in 
contact  with  them  — forgetting  entirely  that  he  is  faring 
forth  for  the  very  purpose  of  coming  in  contact  with  them. 
. . . The  wives  of  men  with  lofty  aspirations  cannot 
resign  themselves  to  seeing  their  husbands  suffering, 
impoverished  and  slighted,  even  though  it  is  apparent 
that  this  suffering  proves,  not  only  that  its  victim  has 
chosen  his  attitude  aright,  but  also  that  his  aims  — some 
day,  at  least  — will  be  realized.  Women  always  intrigue 
in  secret  against  the  higher  souls  of  their  husbands.  They 
seek  to  cheat  the  future  for  the  sake  of  a painless  and 
agreeable  present.”  1 In  other  words,  the  feminine  vision 
is  ever  limited  in  range.  Your  typical  woman  cannot  see 
far  ahead ; she  cannot  reason  out  the  ultimate  effect  of  a 
complicated  series  of  causes;  her  eye  is  always  upon  the 
present  or  the  very  near  future.  Thus  Nietzsche  reaches, 
by  a circuitous  route,  a conclusion  supported  by  the 
almost  unanimous  verdict  of  the  entire  masculine  sex,  at 
all  times  and  everywhere. 

Nietzsche  quite  agrees  with  Schopenhauer  (and  with 
nearly  everyone  else  who  has  given  the  matter  thought) 
that  the  thing  we  call  love  is  grounded  upon  physical 
desire,  and  that  all  of  those  arts  of  dress  and  manner  in 
which  women  excel  are  mere  devices  for  arousing  this 
desire  in  man,  but  he  points  out,  very  justly,  that  a great 
many  other  considerations  also  enter  into  the  matter. 
Love  necessarily  presupposes  a yearning  to  mate,  and 

k. 

1 “ Menschliches  allzu  Menscklich.es ,”  § 431,  434. 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


181 


mating  is  its  logical  consequence,  but  the  human  imagi- 
nation has  made  it  more  than  that.  The  man  in  love  sees 
in  his  charmer,  not  only  an  attractive  instrument  for 
satisfying  his  comparatively  rare  and  necessarily  brief 
impulses  to  dalliance,  but  also  a worthy  companion, 
guide,  counsellor  and  friend.  The  essence  of  love  is  confi- 
dence — confidence  in  the  loved  one’s  judgment,  honesty 
and  fidelity  and  in  the  persistence  of  her  charm.  So  large 
do  these  considerations  loom  among  the  higher  classes  of 
men  that  they  frequently  obscure  the  fundamental  sexual 
impulse  entirely.  It  is  a commonplace,  indeed,  that  in 
the  ecstasies  of  amorous  idealization,  the  notion  of  the 
function  itself  becomes  obnoxious.  It  may  be  impossible 
to  imagine  a man  loving  a woman  without  having  had,  at 
some  time,  conscious  desire  for  her,  but  all  the  same  it  is 
undoubtedly  true  that  the  wish  for  marriage  is  very  often 
a wish  for  close  and  constant  association  with  the  one 
respected,  admired  and  trusted  rather  than  a yearning 
for  the  satisfaction  of  desire. 

All  of  this  admiration,  respect  and  trust,  as  we  have 
seen,  may  be  interpreted  as  confidence,  which,  in  turn,  is 
faith.  Now,  faith  is  essentially  unreasonable,  and  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases,  is  the  very  antithesis  of  reason. 
Therefore,  a man  in  love  commonly  endows  the  object  of 
his  affection  with  merits  which,  to  the  eye  of  a disinterested 
person,  she  obviously  lacks.  “ Love  . . . has  a secret 
craving  to  discover  in  the  loved  one  as  many  beautiful 
qualities  as  possible  and  to  raise  her  as  high  as  possible.” 
“ Whoever  idolizes  a person  tries  to  justify  himself  by 
idealizing;  and  thus  becomes  an  artist  (or  self-deceiver) 
in  order  to  have  a clear  conscience.”  Again  there  is  a 


182 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


tendency  to  illogical  generalization..  “ Everything  which 
pleases  me  once,  or  several  times,  is  pleasing  of  and  in 
itself.”  The  result  of  this,  of  course,  is  quick  and  painful 
disillusion.  The  loved  one  is  necessarily  merely  human 
and  when  the  ideal  gives  way  to  the  real,  reaction  neces- 
sarily follows.  “ Many  a married  man  awakens  one 
morning  to  the  consciousness  that  his  wife  is  far  from 
attractive.”  1 And  it  is  only  fair  to  note  that  the  same 
awakening  is  probably  the  bitter  portion  of  most  married 
women,  too. 

In  addition,  it  is  plain  that  the  purely  physical  desire 
which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  all  human  love,  no  matter  how 
much  sentimental  considerations  may  obscure  it,  is  merely 
a passion  and  so,  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  is  intermit- 
tent and  evanescent.  There  are  moments  when  it  is  over- 
powering, but  there  are  hours,  days,  weeks  and  months 
when  it  is  dormant.  Therefore,  we  must  conclude  with 
Nietzsche,  that  the  thing  we  call  love,  whether  considered 
from  its  physical  or  psychical  aspect,  is  fragile  and  short- 
lived. 

Now,  inasmuch  as  marriage,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  is 
a permanent  institution  (as  it  is,  according  to  the  theory 
of  our  moral  code,  in  all  cases),  it  follows  that,  in  order  to 
make  the  relation  bearable,  something  must  arise  to  take 
the  place  of  love.  This  something,  as  we  know,  is  ordi- 
narily tolerance,  respect,  camaraderie,  or  a common 
interest  in  the  well-being  of  the  matrimonial  firm  or  in 
the  offspring  of  the  marriage.  In  other  words,  the  dis- 
covery that  many  of  the  ideal  qualities  seen  in  the  life- 
companion  through  the  rosy  glasses  of  love  do  not  exist 

1 All  of  these  quotations  are  from  “ Morgenrote 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


183 

is  succeeded  by  a common-sense  and  unsentimental 
decision  to  make  the  best  of  those  real  ones  which  actually 
do  exist. 

From  this  it  is  apparent  that  a marriage  is  most  apt  to 
be  successful  when  the  qualities  imagined  in  the  beloved 
are  all,  or  nearly  all,  real : that  is  to  say,  when  the  possi- 
bility of  disillusion  is  at  an  irreducible  minimum.  This 
occurs  sometimes  by  accident,  but  Nietzsche  points  out 
that  such  accidents  are  comparatively  rare.  A man  in 
love,  indeed,  is  the  worst  possible  judge  of  his  inamorata' s 
possession  of  those  traits  which  will  make  her  a satis- 
factory wife,  for,  as  we  have  noted,  he  observes  her 
through  an  ideal  haze  and  sees  in  her  innumerable  merits 
which,  to  the  eye  of  an  unprejudiced  and  accurate  observer, 
she  does  not  possess.  Nietzsche,  at  different  times, 
pointed  out  two  remedies  for  this.  His  first  plan  pro- 
posed that  marriages  for  love  be  discouraged,  and  that  we 
endeavor  to  insure  the  permanence  of  the  relation  by 
putting  the  selection  of  mates  into  the  hands  of  third 
persons  likely  to  be  dispassionate  and  far-seeing:  a plan 
followed  with  great  success,  it  may  be  recalled,  by  most 
ancient  peoples  and  in  vogue,  in  a more  or  less  disguised 
form,  in  many  European  countries  today.  “ It  is  impossi- 
ble,” he  said,  “ to  found  a permanent  institution  upon  an 
idiosyncrasy.  Marriage,  if  it  is  to  stand  as  the  bulwark 
of  civilization,  cannot  be  founded  upon  the  temporary 
and  unreasonable  thing  called  love.  To  fulfil  its  mission, 
it  must  be  founded  upon  the  impulse  to  reproduction,  or 
race  permanence ; the  impulse  to  possess  property 
(women  and  children  are  property);  and  the  impulse  to 
rule,  which  constantly  organizes  for  itself  the  smallest 


184 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


unit  of  sovereignty,  the  family,  and  which  needs  children 
and  heirs  to  maintain,  by  physical  force,  whatever  meas- 
ure of  power,  riches  and  influence  it  attains.” 

Nietzsche’s  second  proposal  was  nothing  more  or  less 
than  the  institution  of  trial  marriage,  which,  when  it  was 
proposed  years  later  by  an  American  sociologist, 1 caused 
all  the  uproar  which  invariably  rises  in  the  United  States 
whenever  an  attempt  is  made  to  seek  absolute  truth. 
“ Give  us  a term,”  said  Zarathustra,  “ and  a small  mar- 
riage, that  we  may  see  whether  we  are  fit  for  the  great 
marriage.”  2 The  idea  here,  of  course,  is  simply  this : 
that,  when  a man  and  a wpman  find  it  utterly  impossible 
to  live  in  harmony,  it  is  better  for  them  to  separate  at  once 
than  to  live  on  together,  making  a mock  of  the  institution 
they  profess  to  respect,  and  begetting  children  who,  in 
Nietzsche’s  phrase,  cannot  be  regarded  other  than  as 
mere  “ scapegoats  of  matrimony.”  Nietzsche  saw  that 
this  notion  was  so  utterly  opposed  to  all  current  ideals 
and  hypocrisies  that  it  would  be  useless  to  argue  it,  and 
so  he  veered  toward  his  first  proposal.  The  latter,  despite 
its  violation  of  one  of  the  most  sacred  illusions  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  is  by  no  means  a mere  fantasy  of  the 
chair.  Marriages  in  which  love  is  subordinated  to  mutual 
fitness  and  material  considerations  are  the  rule  in  many 
countries  today,  and  have  been  so  for  thousands  of  years, 
and  if  it  be  urged  that,  in  France,  their  fruit  has  been 
adultery,  unfruitfulness  and  degeneration,  it  may  be 

1 Elsie  Clews  Parsons : “ The  Family,”  New  York,  1906.  Mrs.  Par- 
sons is  a doctor  of  philosophy,  a Hartley  house  fellow  and  was  for  six 
years  a lecturer  on  sociology  at  Barnard  College. 

2 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra,"  III. 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


185 


answered  that,  in  Turkey,  Japan  and  India,  they  have 
become  the  cornerstones  of  quite  respectable  civilizations. 

Nietzsche  believed  that  the  ultimate  mission  and 
function  of  human  marriage  was  the  breeding  of  a race  of 
supermen  and  he  saw  very  clearly  that  fortuitous  pairing 
would  never  bring  this  about.  “ Thou  shalt  not  only 
propagate  thyself,”  said  Zarathustra,  “ but  propagate  thy- 
self upward.  Marriage  should  be  the  will  of  two  to  create 
that  which  is  greater  than  either.  But  that  which  the 
many  call  marriage  — alas  ! what  call  I that  ? Alas ! 
that  soul-poverty  of  two  ! Alas ! that  soul-filth  of  two  ! 
Alas ! that  miserable  dalliance  of  two ! Marriage  they 
call  it  — and  they  say  that  marriages  are  made  in  heaven. 
I like  them  not : these  animals  caught  in  heavenly  nets.  . . 
Laugh  not  at  such  marriages  \ What  child  has  not  reason 
to  weep  over  its  parents  ? ” It  is  the  old  argument  against 
haphazard  breeding.  We  select  the  sires  and  dams  of 
our  race-horses  with  most  elaborate  care,  but  the  strains 
that  mingle  in  our  children’s  veins  get  there  by  chance. 
“ Worthy  and  ripe  for  begetting  the  superman  this  man 
appeared  to  me,  but  when  I saw  his  wife  earth  seemed  a 
madhouse.  Yea,  I wish  the  earth  would  tremble  in  con- 
vulsions when  such  a saint  and  such  a goose  mate ! This 
one  fought  for  truth  like  a hero  — and  then  took  to  heart 
a little  dressed-up  lie.  He  calls  it  his  marriage.  That 
one  was  reserved  in  intercourse  and  chose  his  associates 
fastidiously  — and  then  spoiled  his  company  forever. 
He  calls  it  his  marriage.  A third  sought  for  a servant 
with  an  angel’s  virtues.  Now  he  is  the  servant  of  a woman. 
Even  the  most  cunning  buys  his  wife  in  a sack.”  1 

* “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra I. 


i86 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


As  has  been  noted,  Nietzsche  was  by  no  means  a 
declaimer  against  women.  A bachelor  himself  and  consti- 
tutionally suspicious  of  all  who  walked  in  skirts,  he 
nevertheless  avoided  the  error  of  damning  the  whole  sex 
as  a dangerous  and  malignant  excrescence  upon  the  face 
of  humanity.  He  saw  that  woman’s  mind  was  the  natural 
complement  of  man’s  mind;  that  womanly  guile  was  as 
useful,  in  its  place,  as  masculine  truth;  that  man,  to 
retain  those  faculties  which  made  him  master  of  the 
earth,  needed  a persistent  and  resourceful  opponent  to 
stimulate  them  and  so  preserve  and  develop  them.  So 
long  as  the  institution  of  the  family  remained  a premise 
in  every  sociological  syllogism,  so  long  as  mere  fruitfulness 
remained  as  much  a merit  among  intelligent  human  beings 
as  it  was  among  peasants  and  cattle  — so  long,  he  saw, 
it  would  be  necessary  for  the  stronger  sex  to  submit  to  the 
parasitic  opportunism  of  the  weaker. 

But  he  was  far  from  exalting  mere  women  into  goddesses, 
after  the  sentimental  fashion  of  those  virtuosi  of  illusion 
who  pass  for  law-givers  in  the  United  States,  and  particu- 
larly in  the  southern  part  thereof.  Chivalry;  with  its 
ridiculous  denial  of  obvious  facts,  seemed  to  him  unspeak- 
able and  the  good  old  sub- Potomac  doctrines  that  a 
woman  who  loses  her  virtue  is,  ipso  facto,  a victim  and 
not  a criminal  or  particeps  criminis,  and  that  a “ lady,” 
by  virtue  of  being  a “ lady,”  is  necessarily  a reluctant 
and  helpless  quarry  in  the  hunt  of  love  — these  ancient 
and  venerable  fallacies  would  have  made  him  laugh.  He 
admitted  the  great  and  noble  part  that  woman  had  to  play 
in  the  world-drama,  but  he  saw  clearly  that  her  methods 
were  essentially  deceptive,  insincere  and  pernicious,  and 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


187 


so  he  held  that  she  should  be  confined  to  her  proper  role 
and  that  any  effort  she  made  to  take  a hand  in  other 
matters  should  be  regarded  with  suspicion,  and  when 
necessary,  violently  opposed.  Thus  Nietzsche  detested 
the  idea  of  women’s  suffrage  almost  as  much  as  he  detested 
the  idea  of  chivalry.  The  participation  of  women  in 
large  affairs,  he  argued,  could  lead  to  but  one  result : the 
contamination  of  the  masculine  ideals  of  justice,  honor 
and  truth  by  the  feminine  ideals  of  dissimulation,  equivoca- 
tion and  intrigue.  In  women,  he  believed,  there  was  an 
entire  absence  of  that  instinctive  liking  for  a square  deal 
and  a fair  fight  which  one  finds  in  all  men  — - even  the 
worst. 

Hence,  Nietzsche  believed  that,  in  his  dealings  with 
women,  man  should  be  wary  and  cautious.  “ Let  men 
fear  women  when  she  loveth : for  she  sacrificeth  all  for 
love  and  nothing  else  hath  value  to  her.  . . . Man  is 
for  woman  a means : the  end  is  always  the  child.  . . . 
Two  things  are  wanted  by  the  true  man : danger  and 
play.  Therefore  he  seeketh  woman  as  the  most  dangerous 
toy  within  his  reach.  . . . Thou  goest  to  women  ? Don’t 
forget  thy  whip!”1  This  last  sentence  has  helped  to 
make  Nietzsche  a stench  in  the  nostrils  of  the  orthodox, 
but  the  context  makes  his  argument  far  more  than  a 
mere*effort  at  sensational  epigram.  He  is  pointing  out 
the  utter  unscrupulousness  which  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  the  maternal  instinct:  an  unscrupulousness  familiar 
to  every  observer  of  humanity. 2 Indeed,  it  is  so  potent  a 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra I. 

2 Until  quite  recently  it  was  considered  indecent  and  indefensible  to 
mention  this  fact,  despite  its  obviousness.  But  it  is  now  discussed 


1 88 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


factor  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  that  we  have,  by  our 
ancient  device  of  labelling  the  inevitable  the  good,  exalted 
it  to  the  dignity  and  estate  of  a virtue.  But  all  the  same, 
we  are  instinctively  conscious  of  its  inherent  opposition 
to  truth  and  justice,  and  so  our  law  books  provide  that  a 
woman  who  commits  a crime  in  her  husband’s  presence 
is  presumed  to  have  been  led  to  it  by  her  desire  to  work 
what  she  regards  as  his  good,  which  means  her  desire  to 
retain  his  protection  and  good  will.  “ Man’s  happiness 
is : ‘ I will.’  Woman’s  happiness  is : ‘He  will.’  ” 1 

Maternity,  thought  Nietzsche,  was  a thing  even  more 
sublime  than  paternity,  because  it  produced  a more  keen 
sense  of  race  responsibility.  “ Is  there  a state  more 
blessed,”  he  asked,  “ than  that  of  a woman  with  child? 
. . . Even  worldly  justice  does  not  allow  the  judge  and 
hangman  to  lay  hold  on  her.”  2 He  saw,  too,  that  woman’s 
insincere  masochism  3 spurred  man  to  heroic  efforts  and 
gave  vigor  and  direction  to  his  work  by  the  very  fact  that 
it  bore  the  outward  aspect  of  helplessness.  He  saw  that 
the  resultant  stimulation  of  the  will  to  power  was  responsi- 
ble for  many  of  the  world’s  great  deeds,  and  that,  if 
woman  served  no  other  purpose,  she  would  still  take  an 
honorable  place  as  the  most  splendid  reward  — greater 

freely  enough  and  in  Henry  Arthur  Jones’ play,  “ The  Hypocrites,”  it 
is  presented  admirably  in  the  character  of  the  mother  whose  ins#nctive 
effort  to  protect  her  son  makes  her  a scoundrel  and  the  son  a cad. 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra]'  I. 

2 “ Morgenrote ,”  § 552 

* Prof.  Dr.  R.  von  Krafft  Ebing  : “ Masochism  is  ...  a peculiar  per- 
version . . . consisting  in  this,  that  the  individual  seized  with  it  is 
dominated  by  the  idea  that  he  is  wholly  and  unconditionally  subjected 
to  the  will  of  a person  of  the  opposite  sex,  who  treats  him  imperiously 
and  humiliates  and  maltreats  him.” 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


189 

than  honors  or  treasures  — that  humanity  could  bestow 
upon  its  victors.  The  winning  of  a beautiful  and  much- 
sought  woman,  indeed,  will  remain  as  great  an  incentive 
to  endeavor  as  the  conquest  of  a principality  so  long  as 
humanity  remains  substantially  as  it  is  today. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  Nietzsche  left  us  no  record  of 
his  notions  regarding  the  probable  future  of  matrimony 
as  an  institution.  We  have  reason  to  believe  that  he 
agreed  with  Schopenhauer’s  analysis  of  the  “ lady,”  i.  e. 
the  woman  elevated  to  splendid,  but  complete  parasitism. 
Schopenhauer  showed  that  this  pitiful  creature  was  the 
product  of  the  monogamous  ideal,  just  as  the  prostitute 
was  the  product  of  the  monogamous  actuality.  In  the 
United  States  and  England,  unfortunately,  it  is  impossible 
to  discuss  such  matters  with  frankness,  or  to  apply  to 
them  the  standards  of  absolute  truth,  on  account  of  the 
absurd  axiom  that  monogamy  is  ordained  of  God,  — 
with  which  maxim  there  appears  the  equally  absurd 
corollary : that  the  civilization  of  a people  is  to  be  meas- 
ured by  the  degree  of  dependence  of  its  women.  Luckily 
for  posterity  this  last  revolting  doctrine  is  fast  dying, 
though  its  decadence  is  scarcely  noticed  and  wholly  mis- 
understood. We  see  about  us  that  women  are  becoming 
more  and  more  independent  and  self-sufficient  and  that, 
as  individuals,  they  have  less  and  less  need  to  seek  and 
retain  the  good  will  and  protection  of  individual  men, 
but  we  overlook  the  fact  that  this  tendency  is  fast  under- 
mining the  ancient  theory  that  the  family  is  a necessary 
and  impeccable  institution  and  that  without  it  progress 
would  be  impossible.  As  a matter  of  fact,  the  idea  of  the 
family,  as  it  exists  today,  is  based  entirely  upon  the  idea 


190 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


of  feminine  helplessness.  So  soon  as  women  are  capable 
of  making  a living  for  themselves  and  their  children, 
without  the  aid  of  the  fathers  of  the  latter,  the  old  corner- 
stone of  the  family  — the  masculine  defender  and  bread- 
winner — will  find  his  occupation  gone,  and  it  will 
become  ridiculous  to  force  him,  by  law  or  custom,  to 
discharge  duties  for  which  there  is  no  longer  need.  Wipe 
out  your  masculine  defender,  and  your  feminine  parasite- 
haus-frau  — and  where  is  your  family? 

This  tendency  is  exhibited  empirically  by  the  rising 
revolt  against  those  fetters  which  the  family  idea  has 
imposed  upon  humanity : by  the  growing  feeling  that 
divorce  should  be  a matter  of  individual  expedience;  by 
the  successful  war  of  cosmopolitanism  upon  insularity 
and  clannishness  and  upon  all  other  costly  outgrowths 
of  the  old  idea  that  because  men  are  of  the  same  blood 
they  must  necessarily  love  one  another ; and  by  the  increas- 
ing reluctance  among  civilized  human  beings  to  become 
parents  without  some  reason  more  logical  than  the  notion 
that  parenthood,  in  itself,  is  praiseworthy.  It  seems  plain, 
in  a word,  that  so  soon  as  any  considerable  portion  of  the 
women  of  the  world  become  capable  of  doing  men’s  work 
and  of  thus  earning  a living  for  themselves  and  their  chil- 
dren without  the  aid  of  men,  there  will  be  in  full  progress 
a dangerous,  if  unconscious,  war  upon  the  institution  of 
marriage.  It  may  be  urged  in  reply  that  this  will  never 
happen,  because  of  the  fact  that  women  are  physically  un- 
equal to  men,  and  that  inconsequence  of  their  duty  of  child- 
bearing, they  will  ever  remain  so,  but  it  may  be  answered 
to  this  that  use  will  probably  vastly  increase  their  physical 
fitness;  that  science  will  rob  child-bearing  of  most  of  its 


WOMEN  AND  MARRIAGE 


191 

terrors  within  a comparatively  few  years;  and  that  the 
woman  who  seeks  to  go  it  alone  will  have  only  herself  and 
her  child  to  maintain,  whereas,  the  man  of  today  has  not 
only  himself  and  his  child,  but  also  the  woman.  Again, 
it  is  plain  that  the  economic  handicap  of  child-bearing 
is  greatly  overestimated.  At  most,  the  business  of 
maternity  makes  a woman  utterly  helpless  for  no  longer 
than  three  months,  and  in  the  case  of  a woman  who  has 
three  children,  this  means  nine  months  in  a life  time. 
It  is  entirely  probable  that  alcohol  alone,  not  to  speak 
of  other  enemies  of  efficiency,  robs  the  average  man  of 
quite  that  much  productive  activity  during  his  three 
score  years  and  ten. 


X 


GOVERNMENT 

Like  Spencer  before  him,  Nietzsche  believed,  as  we 
have  seen,  that  the  best  possible  system  of  government 
was  that  which  least  interfered  with  the  desires  and 
enterprises  of  the  efficient  and  intelligent  individual. 
That  is  to  say,  he  held  that  it  would  be  well  to  establish, 
among  the  members  of  his  first  caste  of  human  beings, 
a sort  of  glorified  anarchy.  Each  member  of  this  caste 
should  be  at  liberty  to  work  out  his  own  destiny  for 
himself.  There  should  be  no  laws  regulating  and  circum- 
scribing his  relations  to  other  members  of  his  caste, 
except  the  easily-recognizable  and  often-changing  laws 
of  common  interest,  and  above  all,  there  should  be  no 
laws  forcing  him  to  submit  to,  or  even  to  consider,  the 
wishes  and  behests  of  the  two  lower  castes.  The  higher 
man,  in  a word,  should  admit  no  responsibility  whatever 
to  the  lower  castes.  The  lowest  of  all  he  should  look 
upon  solely  as  a race  of  slaves  bred  to  work  his  welfare 
in  the  most  efficient  and  uncomplaining  manner  possible, 
and  the  military  caste  should  seem  to  him  a race  designed 
only  to  carry  out  his  orders  and  so  prevent  the  slave  caste 
marching  against  him. 

It  is  plain  from  this  that  Nietzsche  stood  squarely 


192 


GOVERNMENT 


193 


opposed  to  both  of  the  two  schemes  of  government  which, 
on  the  surface,  at  least,  seem  to  prevail  in  the  western 
world  to-day.  For  the  monarchial  ideal  and  for  the 
democratic  ideal  he  had  the  same  words  of  contempt. 
Under  an  absolute  monarchy,  he  believed,  the  military 
or  law-enforcing  caste  was  unduly  exalted,  and  so  its 
natural  tendency  to  permanence  was  increased  and  its 
natural  opposition  to  all  experiment  and  progress  was 
made  well  nigh  irresistible.  Under  a communistic 
democracy,  on  the  other  hand,  the  mistake  was  made  of 
putting  power  into  the  hands  of  the  great,  inert  herd, 
which  was  necessarily  and  inevitably  ignorant,  credulous, 
superstitious,  corrupt  and  wrong.  The  natural  tendency 
of  this  herd,  said  Nietzsche,  was  to  combat  change  and 
progress  as  bitterly  and  as  ceaselessly  as  the  military- 
judicial  caste,  and  when,  by  some  accident,  it  rose  out  of 
its  rut  and  attempted  experiments,  it  nearly  always  made 
mistakes,  both  in  its  premises  and  its  conclusions  and  so 
got  hopelessly  bogged  in  error  and  imbecility.  Its  feeling 
for  truth  seemed  to  him  to  be  almost  nil;  its  mind 
could  never  see  beneath  misleading  exteriors.  “ In 
the  market  place,”  said  Zarathustra,  “ one  convinces 
by  gestures,  but  real  reasons  make  the  populace  dis- 
trustful.” 1 

That  this  natural  incompetence  of  the  masses  is  an 
actual  fact  was  observed  by  a hundred  philosophers 
before  Nietzsche,  and  fresh  proofs  of  it  are  spread  copi- 
ously before  the  world  every  day.  Wherever  universal 
suffrage,  or  some  close  approach  to  it,  is  the  primary 
axiom  of  government,  the  thing  known  in  the  United 

* “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra ,”  IV. 


'I 


194  FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 

States  as  “ freak  legislation  ” is  a constant  evil.  On  the 
statute  books  of  the  great  majority  of  American  states 
there  are  laws  so  plainly  opposed  to  all  common-sense 
that  they  bear  an  air  of  almost  pathetic  humor.  One 
state  legislature, 1 in  an  effort  to  prevent  the  corrupt 
employment  of  insurance  funds,  passes  laws  so  stringent 
that,  in  the  face  of  them,  it  is  utterly  impossible  for  an 
insurance  company  to  transact  a profitable  business. 
Another  considers  an  act  contravening  rights  guaranteed 
specifically  by  the  state  and  national  constitutions;2  yet 
another 3 passes  a law  prohibiting  divorce  under  any  cir- 
cumstances whatever.  And  the  spectacle  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  the  American  states.  In  the  Australian 
Commonwealth,  mob-rule  has  burdened  the  statutes 
with  regulations  which  make  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
the  natural  development  of  the  country’s  resources 
and  trade.  If,  in  England  and  Germany,  the  effect 
of  universal  suffrage  has  been  less  apparent,  it 
is  because  in  these  countries  the  two  upper  castes 
have  solved  the  problem  of  keeping  the  proletariat, 
despite  its  theoretical  sovereignty,  in  proper  leash  and 
bounds. 

The  possibility  of  exercising  this  control  seemed  to 
Nietzsche  to  be  the  saving  grace  of  all  modern  forms 
of  government,  just  as  their  essential  impossibility  appeared 
as  the  saving  grace  alike  of  Christianity  and  of  com- 

* That  of  Wisconsin  at  the  1907  session. 

2 This  has  been  done,  time  and  again,  by  the  legislature  of  every 
state  in  the  Union,  and  the  overturning  of  such  legislation  occupies 
part  of  the  time  of  all  the  state  courts  of  final  judicature  year  after 
year. 

3 That  of  South  Carolina. 


GOVERNMENT 


195 


munistic  civilization.  In  England,  as  we  have  seen,1 
the  military-judicial  caste,  despite  the  Reform  Act  of 
1867,  has  retained  its  old  dominance,  and  in  Germany, 
despite  the  occasional  success  of  the  socialists,  it  is  always 
possible  for  the  military  aristocracy,  by  appealing  to  the 
vanity  of  the  bourgeoisie , to  win  in  a stand-up  fight.  In 
America,  the  proletariat,  when  it  is  not  engaged  in  function- 
ing in  its  own  extraordinary  manner,  is  commonly  the 
tool,  either  of  the  first  of  Nietzsche’s  castes  or  of  the 
second.  That  is  to  say,  the  average  legislature  has  its 
price,  and  this  price  is  often  paid  by  those  who  believe 
that  old  laws,  no  matter  how  imperfect  they  may  be,  are 
better  than  harum-scarum  new  ones.  Naturally  enough, 
the  most  intelligent  and  efficient  of  Americans  — members 
of  the  first  caste  — do  not  often  go  to  a state  capital 
with  corruption  funds  and  openly  buy  legislation,  but 
nevertheless  their  influence  is  frequently  felt.  President 
Roosevelt,  for  one,  has  more  than  once  forced  his  views 
upon  a reluctant  proletariat  and  even  enlisted  it  under 
his  banner  — as  in  his  advocacy  of  centralization,  a truly 
dionysian  idea,  for  example  — and  in  the  southern  states 
the  educated  white  class  — which  there  represents, 
though  in  a melancholy  fashion,  the  Nietzschean  first 
caste  — has  found  it  easy  to  take  from  the  black  masses 
their  very  right  to  vote,  despite  the  fact  that  they  are 
everywhere  in  a great  majority  numerically,  and  so,  by 
the  theory  of  democracy,  represent  whatever  power  lies 
in  the  state.  Thus  it  is  apparent  that  Nietzsche’s  argu- 
ment against  democracy,  like  his  argument  against 
brotherhood,  is  based  upon  the  thesis  that  both  are 

* Vide  the  chapter  on  “ Civilization.” 


196 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


rejected  instinctively  by  all  those  men  whose  activity 
works  for  the  progress  of  the  human  race. 1 

It  is  obvious,  of  course,  that  the  sort  of  anarchy  preached 
by  Nietzsche  differs  vastly  from  the  beery,  collarless 
anarchy  preached  by  Herr  Most  and  his  unwashed 
followers.  The  latter  contemplates  a suspension  of  all 
laws  in  order  that  the  unfit  may  escape  the  natural  and 
rightful  exploitation  of  the  fit,  whereas  the  former  reduces 
the  unfit  to  de  facto  slavery  and  makes  them  subject  to 
the  laws  of  a master  class,  which,  in  so  far  as  the  relations 
of  its  own  members,  one  to  the  other,  are  concerned, 
recognizes  no  law  but  that  of  natural  selection.  To  the 
average  American  or  Englishman  the  very  name  of 
anarchy  causes  a shudder,  because  it  invariably  conjures 
up  a picture  of  a land  terrorized  by  low-browed  assassins 
with  matted  beards,  carrying  bombs  in  one  hand  and 
mugs  of  beer  in  the  other.  But  as  a matter  of  fact,  there 
is  no  reason  whatever  to  believe  that,  if  all  laws  were 
abolished  tomorrow,  such  swine  would  survive  the  day. 
They  are  incompetents  under  our  present  paternalism 
and  they  would  be  incompetents  under  dionysian  anarchy. 

1 Said  the  Chicago  Tribune , “ the  best  all-round  newspaper  in  the 
United  States,”  in  a leading  article,  June  io,  1907:  “ Jeremy  Bentham 
speaks  of  1 an  incoherent  and  undigested  mass  of  law,  shot  down,  as 
from  a rubbish  cart,  upon  the  heads  of  the  people.  ’ This  is  a fairly  ac- 
curate summary  of  the  work  of  the  average  American  legislature,  from 
New  York  to  Texas.  . . . Bad,  crude  and  unnecessary  laws  make  up 
a large  part  of  the  output  of  every  session.  . . . Roughly  speaking,  the 
governor  who  vetoes  the  most  bills  is  the  best  governor.  When  a gov- 
ernor vetoes  none  the  legitimate  presumption  is,  not  that  the  work  of  the 
legislature  was  flawless,  but  that  he  was  timid,  not  daring  to  oppose  ig- 
norant popular  sentiment  ...  or  that  he  had  not  sense  enough  to  rec- 
ognize a bad  measure  when  he  saw  it.” 


GOVERNMENT 


197 


The  only  difference  between  the  two  states  is  that  the 
former,  by  its  laws,  protects  men  of  this  sort,  whereas 
the  latter  would  work  their  speedy  annihilation.  In  a 
word,  the  dionysian  state  would  see  the  triumph,  not  of 
drunken  loafers,  but  of  the  very  men  whose  efforts  are 
making  for  progress  today : those  strong,  free,  self-reliant, 
resourceful  men  whose  capacities  are  so  much  greater 
than  the  mobs’  that  they  are  often  able  to  force  their  ideas 
upon  it,  despite  its  theoretical  right  to  rule  them  and  its 
actual  endeavor  so  to  do.  Nietzschean  anarchy  would 
create  an  aristocracy  of  efficiency.  The  strong  man  — 
which  means  the  intelligent,  ingenious  and  far-seeing  man 
— would  acknowledge  no  authority  but  his  own  will  and 
no  morality  but  his  own  advantage.  As  we  have  seen  in 
previous  chapters,  this  would  re-establish  the  law  of 
natural  selection  firmly  upon  its  disputed  throne,  and  so 
the  strong  would  grow  ever  stronger  and  more  efficient, 
and  the  weak  would  grow  ever  more  obedient  and  tractile. 

It  may  be  well  at  this  place  to  glance  briefly  at  an 
objection  that  has  been  urged  against  Nietzsche’s  argu- 
ment by  many  critics,  and  particularly  by  those  in  the 
socialistic  camp.  Led  to  it,  no  doubt,  by  their  too  literal 
acceptance  of  Marx’s  materialistic  conception  of  history, 
they  have  assumed  that  Nietzsche’s  higher  man  must 
necessarily  belong  to  the  class  denominated,  by  our 
after-dinner  speakers  and  leader  writers,  “ captains  of 
industry,”  and  to  this  class  alone.  That  is  to  say,  they 
have  regarded  the  higher  man  as  identical  with  the  push- 
ing, grasping  buccaneer  of  finance,  because  this  buc- 
caneer has  seemed  to  them  to  be  the  only  man  of  today 
who  is  truly  “ strong,  free,  self-reliant  and  resourceful  ” 


198 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


and  the  only  one  who  actually  “ acknowledges  no  au- 
thority but  his  own  will.”  As  a matter  of  fact,  all  of  these 
assumptions  are  in  error.  For  one  thing,  the  “ captain 
of  industry  ” is  not  uncommonly  the  reverse  of  a dionysian, 
and  without  the  artificial  aid  of  our  permanent  laws,  he 
might  often  perish  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  For 
another  thing,  it  is  an  obvious  fact  that  the  men  who  go 
most  violently  counter  to  the  view  of  the  herd,  and  who 
battle  most  strenuously  to  prevail  against  it  — our  true 
criminals  and  transvaluers  and  breakers  of  the  law  — 
are  not  such  men  as  Rockefeller,  but  men  such  as  Pasteur ; 
not  such  men  as  Morgan  and  Hooley,  but  sham-smashers 
and  truth-tellers  and  mob-fighters  after  the  type  of  Huxley, 
Lincoln,  Bismarck,  Darwin,  Virchow,  Haeckel,  Hobbes, 
Macchiavelli,  Harvey  and  Jenner,  the  father  of  vaccina- 
tion. 

Jenner,  to  choose  one  from  the  long  list,  was  a real 
dionysian,  because  he  boldly  pitted  his  own  opinion 
against  the  practically  unanimous  opinion  of  all  the  rest 
of  the  human  race.  Among  those  members  of  the  ruling 
class  in  England  who  came  after  him  — those  men, 
that  is,  who  made  vaccination  compulsory  — the  dionysian 
spirit  was  still  more  apparent.  The  masses  themselves 
did  not  want  to  be  vaccinated,  because  they  were  too 
ignorant  to  understand  the  theory  of  inoculation  and  too 
stupid  to  be  much  impressed  by  its  unvisualized  and  — 
for  years,  at  least  — impalpable  benefits.  Yet  their 
rulers  forced  them,  against  their  will,  to  bare  their  arms. 
And  why  was  this  done  ? Was  it  because  the  ruling  class 
was  possessed  by  a boundless  love  for  humanity  and  so 
yearned  to  lavish  upon  it  a wealth  of  Christian  devotion  ? 


GOVERNMENT 


199 


Not  at  all.  The  real  motive  of  the  law  makers  was  to  be 
found  in  two  considerations.  In  the  first  place,  a pro- 
letariat which  suffered  from  epidemics  of  small- pox  was 
a crippled  mob  whose  capacity  for  serving  its  betters,  in 
the  fields  and  factories  of  England,  was  sadly  decreased. 
In  the  second  place  experience  proved  that  when  small- 
pox raged  in  the  slums,  it  had  an  unhappy  habit  of  stretch- 
ing out  its  arms  in  the  direction  of  mansion  and  castle, 
too.  Therefore,  the  proletariat  was  vaccinated  and 
small-pox  was  stamped  out  — ■ not  because  the  ruling  class 
loved  the  workers,  but  because  it  wanted  to  make  them 
work  for  it  as  continuously  as  possible  and  to  remove  or 
reduce  their  constant  menace  to  its  life  and  welfare.  In 
so  far  as  it  took  the  initiative  in  these  proceedings,  the 
military  ruling-class  of  England  raised  itself  to  the  emi- 
nence of  Nietzsche’s  first  caste.  That  Jenner  himself, 
when  he  put  forward  his  idea  and  led  the  military  caste 
to  carry  it  into  execution,  was  an  ideal  member  of  the 
first  caste,  is  plain.  The  goal  before  him  was  fame  ever- 
lasting — and  he  gained  it. 

I have  made  this  rather  long  digression  because  the 
opponents  of  Nietzsche  have  voiced  their  error  a thousand 
times  and  have  well-nigh  convinced  a great  many  persons 
of  its  truth.  It  is  apparent  enough,  of  course,  that  a 
great  many  men  whose  energy  is  devoted  to  the  accumu- 
lation of  money  are  truly  dionysian  in  their  methods  and 
aims,  but  it  is  apparent,  too,  that  a great  many  others  are 
not.  Nietzsche  himself  was  well  aware  of  the  dangers 
which  beset  a race  enthralled  by  commercialism,  and  he 
sounded  his  warning  against  them.  Trade,  being  grounded 
upon  security,  tends  to  work  for  permanence  in  laws  and 


200 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


customs,  even  after  the  actual  utility  of  these  laws  and 
customs  is  openly  questioned.  This  is  shown  by  the 
persistence  of  free  trade  in  England  and  of  protectionism 
in  the  United  States,  despite  the  fact  that  the  conditions 
of  existence,  in  both  countries,  have  materially  changed 
since  the  two  systems  were  adopted,  and  there  is  now 
good  ground,  in  each,  for  demanding  reform.  So  it  is 
plain  that  Nietzsche  did  not  cast  his  higher  man  in  the 
mold  of  a mere  millionaire.  It  is  conceivable  that  a care- 
ful analysis  might  prove  Mr.  Morgan  to  be  a dionysian, 
but  it  is  certain  that  his  character  as  such  would  not  be 
grounded  upon  his  well-known  and  oft-repeated  plea 
that  existing  institutions  be  permitted  to  remain  as  they 
are. 

Yet  again,  a great  many  critics  of  Nietzsche  mistake 
his  criticism  of  existing  governmental  institutions  for  an 
argument  in  favor  of  their  immediate  and  violent  aboli- 
tion. When  he  inveighs  against  monarchy  or  democracy, 
for  instance,  it  is  concluded  that  he  wants  to  assassinate 
all  the  existing  rulers  of  the  world,  overturn  all  existing 
governments  and  put  chaos,  carnage,  rapine  and  anarchy 
in  their  place.  Such  a conclusion,  of  course,  is  a grievous 
error.  Nietzsche  by  no  means  believed  that  reforms  could 
be  instituted  in  a moment  or  that  the  characters  and 
habits  of  thought  of  human  beings  could  be  altered  by  a 
lightning  stroke.  His  whole  philosophy,  in  truth,  was 
based  upon  the  idea  of  slow  evolution,  through  infinitely 
laborious  and  infinitely  protracted  stages.  All  he  at- 
tempted to  do  was  to  indicate  the  errors  that  were  being 
made  in  his  own  time  and  to  point  out  the  probable 
character  of  the  truths  that  would  be  accepted  in  the 


GOVERNMENT 


201 


future.  He  believed  that  it  was  only  by  constant  skepti- 
cism, criticism  and  opposition  that  progress  could  be 
made,  and  that  the  greatest  of  all  dangers  was  inanition.  ~ 
Therefore,  when  he  condemned  all  existing  schemes  of 
government,  it  meant  no  more  than  that  he  regarded  them 
as  based  upon  fundamental  errors,  and  that  he  hoped 
and  believed  that,  in  the  course  of  time,  these  errors 
would  be  observed,  admitted  and  swept  away,  to  make 
room  for  other  errors  measurably  less  dangerous,  and 
in  the  end  for  truths.  Such  was  his  mission,  as  he  con- 
ceived it : to  attack  error  wherever  he  saw  it  and  to  pro- 
claim truth  whenever  he  found  it.  It  is  only  by  such 
iconoclasm  and  proselyting  that  humanity  can  be  helped. 

It  is  only  after  a mistake  is  perceived  and  admitted 
that  it  can  be  rectified. 

Nietzsche’s  argument  for  the  “ free  spirit  ” by  no  means 
denies  the  efficacy  of  co-operation  in  the  struggle  upward, 
but  neither  does  it  support  that  blind  fetishism  which  sees 
in  co-operation  the  sole  instrument  of  human  progress.  In 
one  of  his  characteristic  thumb-nail  notes  upon  evolution 
he  says : “ The  most  important  result  of  progress  in  the 
past  is  the  fact  that  we  no  longer  live  in  constant  fear  of 
wild  beasts,  barbarians,  gods  and  our  own  dreams.”  1 It 
may  be  argued,  in  reference  to  this,  that  organized  gov- 
ernment is  to  be  thanked  for  our  deliverance,  but  a 
moment’s  thought  will  show  the  error  of  the  notion. 
Humanity’s  war  upon  wild  beasts  was  fought  and  won  by 
individualists,  who  had  in  mind  no  end  but  their  personal 
safety  and  that  of  their  children,  and  the  subsequent 
war  upon  barbarians  would  have  been  impossible,  or  at 

1 “ tyforgenrote,"  § 5, 


202 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


least  unsuccessful,  had  it  not  been  for  the  weapons  in- 
vented and  employed  during  the  older  fight  against  beasts. 
Again,  it  is  apparent  that  our  emancipation  from  the 
race’s  old  superstitions  regarding  gods  and  omens  has  been 
achieved,  not  by  communal  effort,  but  by  individual  effort. 
Knowledge  and  not  government  brought  us  the  truth  that 
made  us  free.  Government,  in  its  very  essence,  is  opposed 
to  all  increase  of  knowledge.  Its  tendency  is  always  toward 
permanence  and  against  change.  It  is  unthinkable  without 
some  accepted  scheme  of  law  or  morality,  and  such 
schemes,  as  we  have  seen,  stand  in  direct  antithesis  to 
every  effort  to  find  the  absolute  truth.  Therefore,  it  is 
plain  that  the  progress  of  humanity,  far  from  being  the 
result  of  government,  has  been  made  entirely  without  its 
aid  and  in  the  face  of  its  constant  and  bitter  opposition. 
The  code  of  Hammurabi,  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians,  the  Code  Napoleon  and  the  English  common 
law  have  retarded  the  search  for  the  ultimate  verities 
almost  as  much,  indeed,  as  the  Ten  Commandments. 

Nietzsche  denies  absolutely  that  there  is  inherent  in 
mankind  a yearning  to  gather  into  communities.  There 
is,  he  says,  but  one  primal  instinct  in  human  beings  (as 
there  is  in  all  other  animals),  and  that  is  the  desire  to 
remain  alive.  All  those  systems  of  thought  which  assume 
the  existence  of  a “ natural  morality  ” are  wrong.  Even 
the  tendency  to  tell  the  truth,  which  seems  to  be  inborn 
in  every  civilized  white  man,  is  not  “ natural,”  for  there 
have  been  — and  are  today  — races  in  which  it  is,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  entirely  absent. 1 And  so  it  is  with 

1 “ The  word  ‘ honesty  ’ is  not  to  be  found  in  the  code  of  either  the 
Socratic  or  the  Christian  virtues.  It  represents  a new  virtue,  not  quite 


GOVERNMENT 


y 203 


the  so-called  social  instinct.  Man,  say  the  communists, 
is  a gregarious  animal  and  can  be  happy  only  in  company 
with  his  fellows,  and  in  proof  of  it  they  cite  the  fact  that 
loneliness  is  everywhere  regarded  as  painful  and  that, 
even  among  the  lower  animals,  there  is  an  impulse  toward 
association.  The  facts  set  forth  in  the  last  sentence  are 
indisputable,  but  they  by  no  means  prove  the  existence 
of  an  elemental  social  feeling  sufficiently  strong  to  make 
its  satisfaction  an  end  in  itself.  In  other  words,  while  it 
is  plain  that  men  flock  together,  just  as  birds  flock  to- 
gether, it  is  going  too  far  to  say  that  the  mere  joy  of  flock- 
ing — the  mere  desire  to  be  with  others  — is  at  the 
bottom  of  the  tendency.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  quite 
possible  to  show  that  men  gather  in  communities  for  the 
same  reason  that  deer  gather  in  herds:  because  each 
individual  realizes  (unconsciously,  perhaps)  that  such  a 
combination  materially  aids  him  in  the  business  of  self- 
protection. One  deer  is  no  match  for  a lion,  but  fifty 
deer  make  him  impotent. 1 

Nietzsche  shows  that,  even  after  communities  are 

ripened,  frequently  misunderstood  and  hardly  conscious  of  itself.  It  is 
yet  something  in  embryo,  which  we  are  at  liberty  either  to  foster  or  to 
check.”  — “ Morgenr'ete,"  § 456. 

1 An  excellent  discussion  of  this  subject,  by  Prof.  Warner  Fite,  of  Indi- 
ana University,  appeared  in  The  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and 
Scientific  Methods  of  July  18,  1907.  Prof.  Fite’s  article  is  called  “ The 
Exaggeration  of  the  Social,”  and  is  a keen  and  sound  criticism  of  “ the 
now  popular  tendency  to  regard  the  individual  as  the  product  of  society.” 
As  he  points  out,  “ any  consciousness  of  belonging  to  one  group  rather 
than  another  must  involve  some  sense  of  individuality.”  In  other  words, 
gregariousness  is  nothing  more  than  an  instinctive  yearning  to  profit 
personally  by  the  possibility  of  putting  others,  to  some  measurable  ex- 
tent, in  the  attitude  of  slaves. 


204 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


formed,  the  strong  desire  of  every  individual  to  look  out 
for  himself,  regardless  of  the  desires  of  others,  persists, 
and  that,  in  every  herd  there  are  strong  members  and 
weak  members.  The  former,  whenever  the  occasion 
arises,  sacrifice  the  latter:  by  forcing  the  heavy,  killing 
drudgery  of  the  community  upon  them  or  by  putting 
them,  in  time  of  war,  into  the  forefront  of  the  fray. 
The  result  is  that  the  weakest  are  being  constantly 
weeded  out  and  the  strongest  are  always  becoming 
stronger  and  stronger.  “ Hence,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ the 
first  ‘ state  ’ made  its  appearance  in  the  form  of  a terrible 
tyranny,  a violent  and  unpitying  machine,  which  kept 
grinding  away  until  the  primary  raw  material,  the 
man-ape,  was  kneaded  and  fashioned  into  alert,  efficient 
man.” 

Now,  when  a given  state  becomes  appreciably  more 
efficient  than  the  states  about  it,  it  invariably  sets  about 
enslaving  them.  Thus  larger  and  larger  states  are  formed, 
but  always  there  is  a ruling  master-class  and  a serving 
slave-class.  “ This,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ is  the  origin  of  the 
state  on  earth,  despite  the  fantastic  theory  which  would 
found  it  upon  some  general  agreement  among  its  members. 
He  who  can  command,  he  who  is  a master  by  nature,  he 
who,  in  deed  and  gesture,  behaves  violently  — what  need 
has  he  for  agreements  ? Such  beings  come  as  fate  comes, 
without  reason  or  pretext.  . . . Their  work  is  the  in- 
stinctive creation  of  forms : they  are  the  most  unconscious 
of  all  artists ; wherever  they  appear,  something  new  is  at 
once  created  — a governmental  organism  which  lives ; in 
which  the  individual  parts  and  functions  are  differentiated 
and  brought  into  correlation,  and  in  which  nothing  at  all 


GOVERNMENT 


205 


is  tolerable  unless  some  utility  with  respect  to  the  whole 
is  implanted  in  it.  They  are  innocent  of  guilt,  of  responsi- 
bility, of  charity  — these  born  rulers.  They  are  ruled  by 
that  terrible  art-egotism  which  knows  itself  to  be  justified 
by  its  work,  as  the  mother  knows  herself  to  be  justified  by 
her  child.” 

Nietzsche  points  out  that,  even  after  nations  have 
attained  some  degree  of  permanence  and  have  introduced 
ethical  concepts  into  their  relations  with  one  another,  they 
still  give  evidence  of  that  same  primary  will  to  power 
which  is  responsible,  at  bottom,  for  every  act  of  the 
individual  man.  “ The  masses,  in  any  nation,”  he  says, 
“ are  ready  to  sacrifice  their  lives,  their  goods  and  chattels, 
their  consciences  and  their  virtue,  to  obtain  that  highest 
of  pleasures : the  feeling  that  they  rule,  either  in  reality  or 
in  imagination,  over  others.  On  these  occasions  they 
make  virtues  of  their  instinctive  yearnings,  and  so  they 
enable  an  ambitious  or  wisely  provident  prince  to  rush 
into  a war  with  the  good  conscience  of  his  people  as 
his  excuse.  The  great  conquerors  have  always  had  the 
language  of  virtue  on  their  lips : they  have  always  had 
crowds  of  people  around  them  who  felt  exalted  and 
would  not  listen  to  any  but  the  most  exalted  sentiments. 
. . . When  man  feels  the  sense  of  power,  he  feels  and 
calls  himself  good,  and  at  the  same  time  those  who  have 
to  endure  the  weight  of  his  power  call  him  evil.  Such  is 
the  curious  mutability  of  moral  judgments  ! . . . Hesiod, 
in  his  fable  of  the  world’s  ages,  twice  pictured  the 
age  of  the  Homeric  heroes  and  made  two  out  of  one. 
To  those  whose  ancestors  were  under  the  iron  heel  of 
the  Homeric  despots,  it  appeared  evil;  while  to  the 


206 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


grandchildren  of  these  despots  it  appeared  good.  Hence 
the  poet  had  no  alternative  but  to  do  as  he  did:  his 
audience  was  composed  of  the  descendants  of  both 
classes.” 1 

Nietzsche  saw  naught  but  decadence  and  illusion  in 
humanitarianism  and  nationalism.  To  profess  a love  for 
the  masses  seemed  to  him  to  be  ridiculous  and  to  profess 
a love  for  one  race  or  tribe  of  men,  in  preference  to  all 
others,  seemed  to  him  no  less  so.  Thus  he  denied  the 
validity  of  two  ideals  which  lie  at  the  base  of  all  civilized 
systems  of  government,  and  constitute,  in  fact,  the  very 
conception  of  the  state.  He  called  himself,  not  a German, 
but  “ a good  European.” 

“ We  good  Europeans,”  he  said,  “ are  not  French 
enough  to  ‘ love  mankind.’  A man  must  be  afflicted  by 
an  excess  of  Gallic  eroticism  to  approach  mankind  with 
ardour.  Mankind ! Was  there  ever  a more  hideous  old 
woman  among  all  the  old  women?  No,  we  do  not  love 
mankind ! . . . On  the  other  hand,  we  are  not  German 
enough  to  advocate  nationalism  and  race-hatred,  or  to 
take  delight  in  that  national  blood-poisoning  which  sets 
up  quarantines  between  the  nations  of  Europe.  We  are 
too  unprejudiced  for  that  — too  perverse,  too  fastidious, 
too  well-informed,  too  much  travelled.  We  prefer  to  live 
on  mountains  — apart,  unseasonable.  . . . We  are  too 
diverse  and  mixed  in  race  to  be  patriots.  We  are,  in  a 
word,  good  Europeans  — the  rich  heirs  of  millenniums  of 
European  thought.  . . . 

“ We  rejoice  in  everything,  which  like  ourselves,  loves 
danger,  war  and  adventure  — which  does  not  make 

1 “ Morgenrote § 1 89. 


GOVERNMENT 


207 


compromises,  nor  let  itself  be  captured,  conciliated  or 
faced.  . . . We  ponder  over  the  need  of  a new  order  of 
things  — even  of  a new  slavery,  for  the  strengthening  and 
elevation  of  the  human  race  always  involves  the  existence 
of  slaves.  ...” 1 

“ The  horizen  is  unobstructed.  . . . Our  ships  can 
start  on  their  voyage  once  more  in  the  face  of  danger.  . . . 
The  sea  — our  sea  ! — lies  before  us ! ” 2 

1 “ Die  frohliche  Wissenschaft,  ” § 377. 

8 “ Die  frohliche  Wissenschaft § 343. 


XI 


CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT 

Nietzsche  says  that  the  thing  which  best  differentiates 
man  from  the  other  animals  is  his  capacity  for  making 
and  keeping  a promise.  That  is  to  say,  man  has  a trained 
and  efficient  memory  and  it  enables  him  to  project  an 
impression  of  today  into  the  future.  Of  the  millions  of 
impressions  which  impinge  upon  his  consciousness  every 
day,  he  is  able  to  save  a chosen  number  from  the  oblivion 
of  forgetfulness.  An  animal  lacks  this  capacity  almost 
entirely.  The  things  that  it  remembers  are  far  from 
numerous  and  it  is  devoid  of  any  means  of  reinforcing 
its  memory.  But  man  has  such  a means  and  it  is  com- 
monly called  conscience.  At  bottom  it  is  based  upon  the 
principle  that  pain  is  always  more  enduring  than  pleas- 
ure. Therefore,  “ in  order  to  make  an  idea  stay  it  must 
be  burned  into  the  memory ; only  that  which  never  ceases 
to  hurt  remains  fixed.”  1 Hence  all  the  world’s  store 
of  tortures  and  sacrifices.  At  one  time  they  were  nothing 
more  than  devices  to  make  man  remember  his  pledges  to 
his  gods.  Today  they  survive  in  the  form  of  legal  punish- 
ments, which  are  nothing  more,  at  bottom,  than  devices 
to  make  a man  remember  his  pledges  to  his  fellow  men. 

1 “ Zur  Geneologie  der  Moral''  II,  § 3. 

208 


CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT 


209 


From  all  this  Nietzsche  argues  that  our  modern  law  is 
the  outgrowth  of  the  primitive  idea  of  barter  — of  the 
idea  that  everything  has  an  equivalent  and  can  be  paid 
for  — that  when  a man  forgets  or  fails  to  discharge  an 
obligation  in  one  way  he  may  wipe  out  his  sin  by  dis- 
charging it  in  some  other  way.  “ The  earliest  relationship 
that  ever  existed,”  he  says,  “ was  the  relationship  be- 
tween buyer  and  seller,  creditor  and  debtor.  On  this 
ground  man  first  stood  face  to  face  with  man.  No  stage 
of  civilization,  however  inferior,  is  without  the  institution 
of  bartering.  To  fix  prices,  to  adjust  values,  to  invent 
equivalents,  to  exchange  things  — • all  this  has  to  such  an 
extent  preoccupied  the  first  and  earliest  thought  of  man, 
that  it  may  be  said  to  constitute  thinking  itself.  Out  of 
it  sagacity  arose,  and  out  of  it,  again,  arose  man’s  first 
pride  — his  first  feeling  of  superiority  over  the  animal 
world.  Perhaps,  our  very  word  man  ( manus ) expresses 
something  of  this. 1 Man  calls  himself  the  being  who 
weighs  and  measures.” 2 

Now  besides  the  contract  between  man  and  man, 
there  is  also  a contract  between  man  and  the  community. 
The  community  agrees  to  give  the  individual  protection 
and  the  individual  promises  to  pay  for  it  in  labor  and 
obedience.  Whenever  he  fails  to  do  so,  he  violates  his 
promise,  and  the  community  regards  the  contract  as 
broken.  Then  “ the  anger  of  the  outraged  creditor  — 
or  community  — withdraws  its  protection  from  the 
debtor  — or  law-breaker  — and  he  is  laid  open  to  all  the 

1 In  the  ancient  Sanskrit  the  word  from  which  “ man  ” comes  meant 
“ to  think,  to  weigh,  to  value,  to  reckon,  to  estimate.” 

2 “ Zur  Geneologie  der  Moral,"  II,  § 8. 


210 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


dangers  and  disadvantages  of  life  in  a state  of  barbarism. 
Punishment,  at  this  stage  of  civilization,  is  simply  the 
image  of  a man’s  normal  conduct  toward  a hated,  dis- 
armed and  cast-down  enemy,  who  has  forfeited  not  only 
all  claims  to  protection,  but  also  all  claims  to  mercy. 
This  accounts  for  the  fact  that  war  (including  the 
sacrificial  cult  of  war)  has  furnished  all  the  forms  in 
which  punishment  appears  in  history.”  1 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  theory  grounds  all  ideas 
of  justice  and  punishment  upon  ideas  of  expedience. 
The  primeval  creditor  forced  his  debtor  to  pay  because 
he  knew  that  if  the  latter  didn’t  pay  he  (the  creditor) 
would  suffer.  In  itself,  the  debtor’s  effort  to  get  some- 
thing for  nothing  was  not  wrong,  because,  as  we  have 
seen  in  previous  chapters,  this  is  the  ceaseless  and  uncon- 
scious endeavor  of  every  living  being,  and  is,  in  fact,  the 
most  familiar  of  all  manifestations  of  the  primary  will  to 
live,  or  more  understandably,  of  the  will  to  acquire 
power  over  environment.  But  when  the  machinery  of 
justice  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  state,  there  came  a 
transvaluation  of  values.  Things  that  were  manifestly 
costly  to  the  state  were  called  wrong,  and  the  old  indi- 
vidualistic standards  of  good  and  bad  — i.  e.  beneficial 
and  harmful  — became  the  standards  of  good  and  evil  — 
i.  e.  right  and  wrong. 

In  this  way,  says  Nietzsche,  the  original  purpose  of 
punishment  has  become  obscured  and  forgotten.  Start- 
ing out  as  a mere  means  of  adjusting  debts,  it  has  become 
a machine  for  enforcing  moral  concepts.  Moral  ideas 
came  into  the  world  comparatively  late,  and  it  was  not 

* “ Zur  Geneologie  der  Moral,"  II,  § 9. 


CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT 


2 1 1 


until  man  had  begun  to  be  a speculative  being  that  he 
invented  gods,  commandments  and  beatitudes.  But  the 
institution  of  punishment  was  in  existence  from  a much 
earlier  day.  Therefore,  it  is  apparent  that  the  moral 
idea,  — the  notion  that  there  is  such  a thing  as  good  and 
such  a thing  as  evil,  — far  from  being  the  inspiration 
of  punishment,  was  engrafted  upon  it  at  a comparatively 
late  period.  Nietzsche  says  that  man,  in  considering 
things  as  they  are  today,  is  very  apt  to  make  this  mistake 
about  their  origins.  He  is  apt  to  conclude,  because  the 
human  eye  is  used  for  seeing,  that  it  was  created  for  that 
purpose,  whereas  it  is  obvious  that  it  may  have  been 
created  for  some  other  purpose  and  that  the  function 
of  seeing  may  have  arisen  later  on.  In  the  same  way, 
man  believes  that  punishment  was  invented  for  the  pur- 
pose of  enforcing  moral  ideas,  whereas,  as  a matter  of 
fact,  it  was  originally  an  instrument  of  expediency  only, 
and  did  not  become  a moral  machine  until  a code  of  moral 
laws  was  evolved. 1 

To  show  that  the  institution  of  punishment  itself  is 
older  than  the  ideas  which  now  seem  to  lie  at  the  base  of 
it,  Nietzsche  cites  the  fact  that  these  ideas  themselves  are 
constantly  varying.  That  is  to  say,  the  aim  and  purpose 
of  punishment  are  conceived  differently  by  different  races 
and  individuals.  One  authority  calls  it  a means  of 
rendering  the  criminal  helpless  and  harmless  and  so  pre- 
venting further  mischief  in  future.  Another  says  that 

1 A familiar  example  of  this  superimposition  of  morality  is  afforded 
by  the  history  of  costume.  It  is  commonly  assumed  that  garments  were 
originally  designed  to  hide  nakedness  as  much  as  to  afford  warmth 
and  adorn  the  person,  whereas,  as  a matter  of  fact,  the  idea  of  modesty 
probably  did  not  appear  until  man  had  been  clothed  for  ages. 


212 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


it  is  a means  of  inspiring  others  with  fear  of  the  law  and 
its  agents.  Another  says  that  it  is  a device  for  destroying 
the  unfit.  Another  holds  it  to  be  a fee  exacted  by  society 
from  the  evil-doer  for  protecting  him  against  the  excesses 
of  private  revenge.  Still  another  looks  upon  it  as  society’s 
declaration  of  war  against  its  enemies.  Yet  another 
says  that  it  is  a scheme  for  making  the  criminal  realize 
his  guilt  and  repent.  Nietzsche  shows  that  all  of  these 
ideas,  while  true,  perhaps,  in  some  part,  are  fallacies  at 
bottom.  It  is  ridiculous,  for  instance,  to  believe  that 
punishment  makes  the  law-breaker  acquire  a feeling  of 
guilt  and  sinfulness.  He  sees  that  he  was  indiscreet  in 
committing  his  crime,  but  he  sees,  too,  that  society’s 
method  of  punishing  his  indiscretion  consists  in  commit- 
ting a crime  of  the  same  sort  against  him.  In  other  words, 
he  cannot  hold  his  own  crime  a sin  without  also  holding 
his  punishment  a sin  — - which  leads  to  an  obvious  absurd- 
ity. As  a matter  of  fact,  says  Nietzsche,  punishment 
really  does  nothing  more  than  “ augment  fear,  intensify 
prudence  and  subjugate  the  passions.”  And  in  so  doing 
it  tames  man,  but  does  not  make  him  better.  If  he  refrains 
from  crime  in  future,  it  is  because  he  has  become 
more  prudent  and  not  because  he  has  become  more 
moral.  If  he  regrets  his  crimes  of  the  past,  it  is  because 
his  punishment,  and  not  his  so-called  conscience,  hurts 
him. 

But  what,  then,  is  conscience?  That  there  is  such 
a thing  every  reasonable  man  knows.  But  what  is  its 
nature  and  what  is  its  origin?  If  it  is  not  the  regret 
which  follows  punishment,  what  is  it?  Nietzsche  an- 
swers that  it  is  nothing  more  than  the  old  will  to  power, 


CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT 


213 


turned  inward.  In  the  days  of  the  cave  men,  a man  gave 
his  will  to  power  free  exercise.  Any  act  which  increased 
his  power  over  his  environment,  no  matter  how  much  it 
damaged  other  men,  seemed  to  him  good.  He  knew 
nothing  of  morality.  Things  appeared  to  him,  not  as 
good  or  evil,  but  as  good  or  bad  — beneficial  or  harmful. 
But  when  civilization  was  born,  there  arose  a necessity 
for  controlling  and  regulating  this  will  power.  The  in- 
dividual had  to  submit  to  the  desire  of  the  majority  and 
to  conform  to  nascent  codes  of  morality.  The  result  was 
that  his  will  to  power,  which  once  spent  itself  in  battles 
with  other  individuals,  had  to  be  turned  upon  himself. 
Instead  of  torturing  others,  he  began  to  torture  his  own 
body  and  mind.  His  ancient  delight  in  cruelty  and 
persecution  (a  characteristic  of  all  healthy  animals) 
remained,  but  he  could  not  longer  satisfy  it  upon  his  fellow 
men  and  so  he  turned  it  upon  himself,  and  straightway 
became  a prey  to  the  feeling  of  guilt,  of  sinfulness,  of 
wrong-doing  — with  all  its  attendant  horrors. 

Now,  one  of  the  first  forms  that  this  self-torture  took 
was  primitive  man’s  accusation  against  'himself  that  he 
was  not  properly  grateful  for  the  favors  of  his  god.  He 
saw  that  many  natural  phenomena  benefited  him,  and  he 
thought  that  these  phenomena  occurred  in  direct  obedi- 
ence to  the  deity’s  command.  Therefore,  he  regarded 
himself  as  the  debtor  of  the  deity,  and  constantly  accused 
himself  of  neglecting  to  discharge  this  debt,  because  he 
felt  that,  by  so  accusing,  he  would  be  most  apt  to  dis- 
charge it  in  full,  and  thus  escape  the  righteous  conse- 
quences of  insufficient  payment.  This  led  him  to  make 
sacrifices  — to  place  food  and  drink  upon  his  god’s  altar, 


214 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


and  in  the  end,  to  sacrifice  much  more  valuable  things, 
such,  for  instance,  as  his  first  born  child.  The  more  vivid 
the  idea  of  the  deity  became  and  the  more  terrible  he 
appeared,  the  more  man  tried  to  satisfy  and  appease  him. 
In  the  early  days,  it  was  sufficient  to  sacrifice  a square 
meal  or  a baby.  But  when  Christianity  — with  its 
elaborate  and  certain  theology  — arose,  it  became  neces- 
sary for  a man  to  sacrifice  himself. 

Thus  arose  the  Christian  idea  of  sin.  Man  began  to 
feel  that  he  was  in  debt  to  his  creator  hopelessly  and 
irretrievably,  and  that,  like  a true  bankrupt,  he  should 
offer  all  he  had  in  partial  payment.  So  he  renounced 
everything  that  made  life  on  earth  bearable  and  desira- 
ble and  built  up  an  ideal  of  poverty  and  suffering. 
Sometimes  he  hid  himself  in  a cave  and  lived  like  an  out- 
cast dog  — and  then  he  was  called  a saint.  Some- 
times he  tortured  himself  with  whips  and  poured 
vinegar  into  his  wounds  — - and  then  he  was  a flagellant 
of  the  middle  ages.  Sometimes,  he  killed  his  sexual 
instinct  and  his  inborn  desire  for  property  and  power 
— and  then  he  became  a penniless  celibate  in  a 
cloister. 

Nietzsche  shows  that  this  idea  of  sin,  which  lies  at  the 
bottom  of  all  religions,  was  and  is  an  absurdity;  that 
nothing,  in  itself,  is  sinful,  and  that  no  man  is,  or  can  be  a 
sinner.  If  we  could  rid  ourselves  of  the  notion  that  here 
is  a God  in  Heaven,  to  whom  we  owe  a debt,  we  would 
rid  ourselves  of  the  idea  of  sin.  Therefore,  argues  Niet- 
zsche, it  is  evident  that  skepticism,  while  it  makes  no 
actual  change  in  man,  always  makes  him  feel  better. 
It  makes  him  lose  his  fear  of  hell  and  his  consciousness  of 


CRIME  AND  PUNISHMENT 


215 


sin.  It  rids  him  of  that  most  horrible  instrument  of 
useless,  senseless  and  costly  torture  — his  conscience. 
“ Atheism,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ will  make  a man  inno- 
cent.” 


XII 


EDUCATION 

Education,  as  everyone  knows,  has  two  main 
objects:  to  impart  knowledge  and  to  implant  culture. 
It  is  the  object  of  a teacher,  first  of  all,  to  bring  before 
his  pupil  as  many  concrete  facts  about  the  universe  — 
the  fruit  of  long  ages  of  inquiry  and  experience  — as  the 
latter  may  be  capable  of  absorbing  in  the  time  available. 
After  that,  it  is  the  teacher’s  aim  to  make  his  pupil’s 
habits  of  mind  sane,  healthy  and  manly,  and  his  whole 
outlook  upon  life  that  of  a being  conscious  of  his  efficiency 
and  eager  and  able  to  solve  new  problems  as  they  arise. 
The  educated  man,  in  a word,  is  one  who  knows  a great 
deal  more  than  the  average  man  and  is  constantly  increas- 
ing his  area  of  knowledge,  in  a sensible,  orderly  logical 
fashion;  one  who  is  wary  of  sophistry  and  leans  auto- 
matically and  almost  instinctively  toward  clear  thinking. 

Such  is  the  purpose  of  education,  in  its  ideal  aspect. 
As  we  observe  the  science  of  teaching  in  actual  practice, 
we  find  that  it  often  fails  utterly  to  attain  this  end.  The 
concrete  facts  that  a student  learns  at  the  average  school 
are  few  and  unconnected,  and  instead  of  being  led  into 
habits  of  independent  thinking  he  is  trained  to  accept 
authority.  When  he  takes  his  degree  it  is  usually  no 

216 


EDUCATION 


217 


more  than  a sign  that  he  has  joined  the  herd.  His  opinion 
of  Napoleon  is  merely  a reflection  of  the  opinion  expressed 
in  the  books  he  has  studied;  his  philosophy  of  life  is 
simply  the  philosophy  of  his  teacher  — tinctured  a bit, 
perhaps,  by  that  of  his  particular  youthful  idols.  He 
knows  how  to  spell  a great  many  long  words  and  he  is 
familiar  with  the  table  of  logarithms,  but  in  the  readiness 
and  accuracy  of  his  mental  processes  he  has  made  com- 
paratively little  progress.  If  he  was  illogical  and  credu- 
lous and  a respecter  of  authority  as  a freshman  he  remains 
much  the  same  as  a graduate.  In  consequence,  his  use- 
fulness to  humanity  has  been  increased  but  little,  if  at 
all,  for,  as  we  have  seen  in  previous  chapters,  the  only 
man  whose  life  is  appreciably  more  valuable  than  that  of 
a good  cow  is  the  man  who  thinks  for  himself,  clearly  and 
logically,  and  lends  some  sort  of  hand,  during  his  lifetime, 
in  the  eternal  search  for  the  ultimate  verities. 

The  cause  for  all  this  lies,  no  doubt,  in  the  fact  that 
school  teachers,  taking  them  by  and  large,  are  probably 
the  most  ignorant  and  stupid  class  of  men  in  the  whole 
group  of  mental  workers.  Imitativeness  being  the  domi- 
nant impulse  in  youth,  their  pupils  acquire  some  measure 
of  their  stupidity,  and  the  result  is  that  the  influence  of 
the  whole  teaching  tribe  is  against  everything  included 
in  genuine  education  and  culture. 

That  this  is  true  is  evident  on  the  surface  and  a mo- 
ment’s analysis  furnishes  a multitude  of  additional 
proofs.  For  one  thing,  a teacher,  before  he  may  begin 
work,  must  sacrifice  whatever  independence  may  survive 
within  him  upon  the  altar  of  authority.  He  becomes  a 
cog  in  the  school  wheel  and  must  teach  only  the  things 


2l8 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


countenanced  and  approved  by  the  powers  above  him, 
whether  those  powers  be  visible  in  the  minister  of  educa- 
tion, as  in  Germany ; in  the  traditions  of  the  school,  as  in 
England,  or  in  the  private  convictions  of  the  millionaire 
who  provides  the  cash,  as  in  the  United  States.  As 
Nietzsche  points  out,  the  schoolman’s  thirst  for  the  truth 
is  always  conditioned  by  his  yearning  for  food  and  drink 
and  a comfortable  bed.  His  archetype  is  the  university 
philosopher,  who  accepts  the  state’s  pay1  and  so  sur- 
renders that  liberty  to  inquire  freely  which  alone  makes 
philosophy  worth  while. 

“ No  state,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ would  ever  dare  to 
patronize  such  men  as  Plato  and  Schopenhauer.  And 
why  ? Simply  because  the  state  is  always  afraid  of  them. 
They  tell  the  truth.  . . . Consequently,  the  man  who 
submits  to  be  a philosopher  in  the  pay  of  the  state  must 
also  submit  to  being  looked  upon  by  the  state  as  one  who 
has  waived  his  claim  to  pursue  the  truth  into  all  its 
fastnesses.  So  long  as  he  holds  his  place,  he  must  acknowl- 
edge something  still  higher  than  the  truth  — and  that  is 
the  state.  . . . 

“ The  sole  criticism  of  a philosophy  which  is  possible 
and  the  only  one  which  proves  anything  — namely,  an 
attempt  to  live  according  to  it  — is  never  put  forward  in 
the  universities.  There  the  only  thing  one  hears  of  is  a 
wordy  criticism  of  words.  And  so  the  youthful  mind, 
without  much  experience  in  life,  is  confronted  by  fifty 

1 Nietzsche  is  considering,  of  course,  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Ger- 
many, where  all  teaching  is  controlled  by  the  state.  But  his  arguments 
apply  to  other  countries  as  well  and  to  teachers  of  other  things  besides 
philosophy. 


EDUCATION 


219 


verbal  systems  and  fifty  criticisms  of  them,  thrown  to- 
gether and  hopelessly  jumbled.  What  demoralization! 
What  a mockery  of  education  ! It  is  openly  acknowledged, 
in  fact,  that  the  object  of  education  is  not  the  acquire- 
ment of  learning,  but  the  successful  meeting  of  examina-  * 
tions.  No  wonder  then,  that  the  examined  student  says 
to  himself  ‘ Thank  God,  I am  not  a philosopher,  but  a 
Christian  and  a citizen ! . . 

“ Therefore,  I regard  it  as  necessary  to  progress  that 
we  withdraw  from  philosophy  all  governmental-  and 
academic  recognition  and  support.  . . . Let  philosophers 
spring  up  naturally,  deny  them  every  prospect  of  appoint- 
ment, tickle  them  no  longer  with  salaries  — yea,  persecute 
them ! Then  you  will  see  marvels ! They  will  then 
flee  afar  and  seek  a roof  anywhere.  Here  a parsonage 
will  open  its  doors;  there  a schoolhouse.  One  will 
appear  upon  the  staff  of  a newspaper,  another  will  write 
manuals  for  young  ladies’  schools.  The  most  rational  of 
them  will  put  his  hand  to  the  plough  and  the  vainest  will 
seek  favor  at  court.  Thus  we  shall  get  rid  of  bad  philoso- 
phers.” 1 

The  argument  here  is  plain  enough.  The  professional 
teacher  must  keep  to  his  rut.  The  moment  he  combats 
the  existing  order  of  things  he  loses  his  place.  Therefore 
he  is  wary,  and  his  chief  effort  is  to  transmit  the  words  of 
authority  to  his  pupils  unchanged.  Whether  he  be  a 
philosopher,  properly  so-called,  or  something  else  matters 
not.  In  a medical  school  wherein  Chauveau’s  theory  of 
immunity  was  still  maintained  it  would  be  hazardous  for 
a professor  of  pathology  to  teach  the  theory  of  Ehrlich. 

1 “ Schopenhauer  als  Erzieher,"  § 8. 


220 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


In  a Methodist  college  in  Indiana  it  would  be  foolhardy 
to  dally  with  the  doctrine  of  apostolic  succession.  Every- 
where the  teacher  must  fashion  his  teachings  according 
to  the  creed  and  regulations  of  his  school  and  he  must 
even  submit  to  authority  in  such  matters  as  text  books 
and  pedagogic  methods.  Again,  his  very  work  itself 
makes  him  an  unconscious  partisan  of  authority,  as 
against  free  inquiry.  During  the  majority  of  his  waking 
hours  he  is  in  close  association  with  his  pupils,  who  are 
admittedly  his  inferiors,  and  so  he  rapidly  acquires  the 
familiar,  self-satisfied  professorial  attitude  of  mind. 
Other  forces  tend  to  push  him  in  the  same  direction  and 
the  net  result  is  that  all  his  mental  processes  are  based 
upon  ideas  of  authority.  He  believes  and  teaches  a thing, 
not  because  he  is  convinced  by  free  reasoning  that  it  is 
true,  but  because  it  is  laid  down  as  an  axiom  in  some 
book  or  was  laid  down  at  some  past  time,  by  himself. 

In  all  this,  of  course,  I am  speaking  of  the  teacher 
properly  so-called  — of  the  teacher,  that  is,  whose  sole 
aim  and  function  is  teaching.  The  university  professor 
whose  main  purpose  in  life  is  original  research  and  whose 
pupils  are  confined  to  graduate  students  engaged  in  much 
the  same  work,  is  scarcely  a professional  teacher,  in  the 
customary  meaning  of  the  word.  The  man  I have  been 
discussing  is  he  who  spends  all  or  the  greater  part  of 
his  time  in  actual  instruction.  Whether  his  work  be 
done  in  a primary  school,  a secondary  school  or  in  the 
undergraduate  department  of  a college  or  university  does 
not  matter.  In  all  that  relates  to  it,  he  is  essentially 
and  almost  invariably  a mere  perpetuator  of  doctrines. 
In  some  cases,  naturally  enough,  these  doctrines  are 


EDUCATION 


221 


truths,  but  in  a great  many  other  cases  they  are  errors. 
An  examination  of  the  physiology,  history  and  “ English  ” 
books  used  in  the  public  schools  of  America  will  convince 
anyone  that  the  latter  proposition  is  amply  true. 

Nietzsche’s  familiarity  with  these  facts  is  demonstrated 
by  numerous  passages  in  his  writings.  “ Never,”  he 
says,  “ is  either  real  proficiency  or  genuine  ability  the 
result  of  toilsome  years  at  school.”  The  study  of  the 
classics,  he  says,  can  never  lead  to  more  than  a superficial 
acquaintance  with  them,  because  the  very  modes  of 
thought  of  the  ancients,  in  many  cases,  are  unintelligible 
to  men  of  today.  But  the  student  who  has  acquired  what 
is  looked  upon  in  our  colleges  as  a mastery  of  the  humani- 
ties is  acutely  conscious  of  his  knowledge,  and  so  the  things 
that  he  cannot  understand  are  ascribed  by  him  to  the 
dulness,  ignorance  or  imbecility  of  the  ancient  authors. 
As  a result  he  harbors  a sort  of  subconscious  contempt 
for  the  learning  they  represent  and  concludes  that 
learning  cannot  make  real  men  happy,  but  is  only  fit  for 
the  futile  enthusiasm  of  “ honest,  poor  and  foolish  old 
book-worms.” 

Nietzsche’s  own  notion  of  an  ideal  curriculum  is  sub- 
stantially that  of  Spencer.  He  holds  that  before  anything 
is  put  forward  as  a thing  worth  teaching  it  should  be 
tested  by  two  questions : Is  it  a fact  ? and,  Is  the  presenta- 
tion of  it  likely  to  make  the  pupil  measurably  more 
capable  of  discovering  other  facts?  In  consequences, 
he  holds  the  old  so-called  “ liberal  ” education  in  abomi- 
nation, and  argues  in  favor  of  a system  of  instruction 
based  upon  the  inculcation  of  facts  of  imminent  value 
and  designed  to  instill  into  the  pupil  orderly  and  logical 


222 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


habits  of  mind  and  a clear  and  accurate  view  of  the 
universe.  The  educated  man,  as  he  understands  the  term, 
is  one  who  is  above  the  mass,  both  in  his  thirst  for  knowl- 
edge and  in  his  capacity  for  differentiating  between  truth 
and  its  reverse.  It  is  obvious  that  a man  who  has  studied 
biology  and  physics,  with  their  insistent  dwelling  upon 
demonstrable  facts,  has  proceeded  further  in  this  direction 
than  the  man  who  has  studied  Greek  mythology  and 
metaphysics,  with  their  constant  trend  toward  unsupported 
and  gratuitous  assumption  and  their  essential  foundation 
upon  undebatable  authority. 

Nietzsche  points  out,  in  his  early  essay  upon  the  study 
of  history,  that  humanity  is  much  too  prone  to  consider 
itself  historically.  That  is  to  say,  there  is  too  much 
tendency  to  consider  man  as  he  has  seemed  rather  than 
man  as  he  has  been  — to  dwell  upon  creeds  and  mani- 
festoes rather  than  upon  individual  and  racial  motives, 
characters  and  instincts.1  The  result  is  that  history  piles 
up  misleading  and  useless  records  and  draws  erroneous 
conclusions  from  them.  As  a science  in  itself,  it  bears 
but  three  useful  aspects  — the  monumental,  the  anti- 
quarian and  the  critical.  Its  true  monuments  are  not  the 
constitutions  and  creeds  of  the  past  — for  these,  as  we 
have  seen,  are  always  artificial  and  unnatural  — but  the 
great  men  of  the  past  — those  fearless  free  spirits  who 
achieved  immortality  by  their  courage  and  success  in 
pitting  their  own  instincts  against  the  morality  of  the 
majority.  Such  men,  he  says,  are  the  only  human  beings 

1 An  excellent  discussion  of  this  error  will  be  found  in  Dr.  Alex. 
Tide’s  introduction  to  William  Haussmann’s  translation  of  “ Zur  Ge?ie- 
ologie  der  Moral"  pp.  xi  et  seq. ; London,  1 907. 


EDUCATION 


223 


whose  existence  is  of  interest  to  posterity.  “ They  live 
together  as  timeless  contemporaries : ” they  are  the  land- 
marks along  the  weary  road  the  human  race  has  traversed. 
In  its  antiquarian  aspect,  history  affords  us  proof  that  the 
world  is  progressing,  and  so  gives  the  men  of  the  present 
a definite  purpose  and  justifiable  enthusiasm.  In  its 
critical  aspect,  history  enables  us  to  avoid  the  delusions 
of  the  past,  and  indicates  to  us  the  broad  lines  of  evolution. 
Unless  we  have  in  mind  some  definite  program  of  ad- 
vancement, he  says,  all  learning  is  useless.  History, 
which  merely  accumulates  records,  without  “ an  ideal  of 
humanistic  culture  ” always  in  mind,  is  mere  pedantry 
and  scholasticism. 

All  education,  says  Nietzsche,  may  be  regarded  as  a t 
continuation  of  the  process  of  breeding. 1 The  two  have 
the  same  object:  that  of  producing  beings  capable  of* 
surviving  in  the  struggle  for  existence.  A great  many 
critics  of  Nietzsche  have  insisted  that  since  the  struggle 
for  existence  means  a purely  physical  contest,  he  is  in 
error,  for  education  does  not  visibly  increase  a man’s 
chest  expansion  or  his  capacity  for  lifting  heavy  weights. 
But  it  is  obvious  none  the  less  that  a man  who  sees  things 
as  they  are,  and  properly  estimates  the  world  about  him, 
is  far  better  fitted  to  achieve  some  measure  of  mastery 
over  his  environment  than  the  man  who  is  a slave  to 
delusions.  Of  two  men,  one  of  whom  believes  that  the 
moon  is  made  of  green  cheese  and  that  it  is  possible  to 
cure  smallpox  by  merely  denying  that  it  exists,  and  the 
other  of  whom  harbors  no  such  superstitions,  it  is  plain 
that  the  latter  is  more  apt  to  live  long  and  acquire  power. 

1 Morgenrijte ,”  § 397. 


224 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


A further  purpose  of  education  is  that  of  affording 
» individuals  a means  of  lifting  themselves  out  of  the  slave 
class  and  into  the  master  class.  That  this  purpose  is 
accomplished  — except  accidently  — by  the  brand  of 
education  ladled  out  in  the  colleges  of  today  is  far  from 
true.  To  transform  a slave  into  a master  we  must  make 
him  intelligent,  self-reliant,  resourceful,  independent 
and  courageous.  It  is  evident  enough,  I take  it,  that  a 
college  directed  by  an  ecclesiastic  and  manned  by  a 
faculty  of  asses  — - a very  fair,  and  even  charitable, 
picture  of  the  average  small  college  in  the  United  States  — 
is  not  apt  to  accomplish  this  transformation  very  often. 
Indeed,  it  is  a commonplace  observation  that  a truly 
intelligent  youth  is  aided  but  little  by  the  average  college 
education,  and  that  a truly  stupid  one  is  made,  not  less, 
but  more  stupid.  The  fact  that  many  graduates  of  such 
institutions  exhibit  dionysian  qualities  in  later  life  merely 
proves  that  they  are  strong  enough  to  weather  the  blight 
they  have  suffered.  Every  sane  man  knows  that,  after  a 
youth  leaves  college,  he  must  devote  most  of  his  energies 
during  three  or  four  years,  to  ridding  himself  of  the 
fallacies,  delusions  and  imbecilities  inflicted  upon  him  by 
messieurs,  his  professors. 

The  intelligent  man,  in  the  course  of  his  life,  nearly 
always  acquires  a vast  store  of  learning,  because  his 
mind  is  constantly  active  and  receptive,  but  intelligence 
and  mere  learning  are  by  no  means  synonymous,  despite 
the  popular  notion  that  they  are.  Disregarding  the  element 
of  sheer  good  luck  — which  is  necessarily  a small  factor  — 
it  is  evident  that  the  man  who,  in  the  struggle  for  wealth 
and  power,  seizes  a million  dollars  for  himself,  is  appre- 


EDUCATION 


225 


ciably  more  intelligent  than  the  man  who  starves.  That 
this  achievement,  which  is  admittedly  difficult,  requires 
more  intelligence  again,  than  the  achievement  of  master- 
ing the  Latin  language,  which  presents  so  few  difficulties 
that  it  is  possible  to  any  healthy  human  being  with  suffi- 
cient leisure  and  patience,  is  also  evident.  In  a word,  the 
illiterate  contractor,  who  says,  “ I seen  ” and  “ I done  ” 
and  yet  manages  to  build  great  bridges  and  to  acquire  a 
great  fortune,  is  immeasurably  more  vigorous  intellectu- 
ally, and  immeasurably  more  efficient  and  respectable, 
as  a man,  than  the  college  professor  who  laughs  at  him 
and  presumes  to  look  down  upon  him.  A man’s  mental 
powers  are  to  be  judged,  not  by  his  ability  to  accomplish 
things  that  are  possible  to  every  man  foolish  enough  to 
attempt  them,  but  by  his  capacity  for  doing  things  beyond 
the  power  of  other  men.  Education,  as  we  commonly 
observe  it  today,  works  toward  the  former,  rather  than 
toward  the  latter  end. 


XIII 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 

Death.  — It  is  Schopenhauer’s  argument  in  his  es- 
say “ On  Suicide,”  that  the  possibility  of  easy  and  pain- 
less self-destruction  is  the  only  thing  that  constantly  and 
considerably  ameliorates  the  horror  of  human  life.  Suicide 
is  a means  of  escape  from  the  world  and  its  tortures  — 
and  therefore  it  is  good.  It  is  an  ever-present  refuge  for 
the  weak,  the  weary  and  the  hopeless.  It  is,  in  Pliny’s 
phrase,  “ the  greatest  of  all  blessings  which  Nature 
gives  to  man,”  and  one  which  even  God  himself  lacks, 
for  “ he  could  not  compass  his  own  death,  if  he  willed  to 
die.”  In  all  of  this  exaltation  of  surrender,  of  course, 
there  is  nothing  whatever  in  common  with  the  dionysian 
philosophy  of  defiance.  Nietzsche’s  teaching  is  all  in  the 
other  direction.  He  urges,  not  surrender,  but  battle; 
not  flight,  but  war  to  the  end.  His  curse  falls  upon  those 
“ preachers  of  death  ” who  counsel  “ an  abandonment 
of  life  ” — whether  this  abandonment  be  partial,  as  in 
asceticism,  or  actual,  as  in  suicide.  And  yet  Zarathustra 
sings  the  song  of  “ free  death  ” and  says  that  the  higher 
man  must  learn  “ to  die  at  the  right  time.”  Herein  an 
inconsistency  appears,  but  it  is  on  the  surface  only. 
Schopenhauer  regards  suicide  as  a means  of  escape, 

226 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


227 


Nietzsche  sees  in  it  as  a means  of  good  riddance.  It  is 
time  to  die,  says  Zarathustra,  when  the  purpose  of  life 
ceases  to  be  attainable  — when  the  fighter  breaks  his 
sword  arm  or  falls  into  his  enemy’s  hands.  And  it  is 
time  to  die,  too,  when  the  purpose  of  life  is  attained  — 
when  the  fighter  triumphs  and  sees  before  him  no  more 
worlds  to  conquer.  “ He  who  hath  a goal  and  an  heir 
wisheth  death  to  come  at  the  right  time  for  goal  and  heir.” 
One  who  has  “ waxed  too  old  for  victories,”  one  who  is 
“ yellow  and  wrinkled,”  one  with  a “ toothless  mouth  ” — 
for  such  an  one  a certain  and  speedy  death.  The  earth  has 
no  room  for  cumberers  and  pensioners.  For  them  the 
highest  of  duties  is  the  payment  of  nature’s  debt,  that 
there  may  be  more  room  for  those  still  able  to  wield  a 
sword  and  bear  a burden  in  the  heat  of  the  day.  The 
best  death  is  that  which  comes  in  battle  “ at  the  moment 
of  victory ; ” the  second  best  is  death  in  battle  in  the  hour 
of  defeat.  “ Would  that  a storm  came,”  sings  Zarathustra, 
“ to  shake  from  the  tree  of  life  all  those  apples  that  are 
putrid  and  gnawed  by  worms.  It  is  cowardice  that 
maketh  them  stick  to  their  branches  ” — cowardice  which 
makes  them  afraid  to  die.  But  there  is  another  cowardice 
which  makes  men  afraid  to  live,  and  this  is  the  cowardice 
of  the  Schopenhauerean  pessimist.  Nietzsche  has  no 
patience  with  it.  To  him  a too  early  death  seems 
as  abominable  as  a death  postponed  too  long.  “ Too 
early  died  that  Jew  whom  the  preachers  of  slow  death 
revere.  Would  that  he  had  remained  in  the  desert 
and  far  away  from  the  good  and  just!  Perhaps  he 
would  have  learned  how  to  live  and  how  to  love  the  earth 
— and  even  how  to  laugh.  He  died  too  early.  He  him. 


228 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


self  would  have  revoked  his  doctrine,  had  he  reached 
mine  age  ! ” 1 Therefore  Nietzsche  pleads  for  an  intelligent 
regulation  of  death.  One  must  not  die  too  soon  and  one 
must  not  die  too  late.  “ Natural  death,”  he  says,  “ is 
destitute  of  rationality.  It  is  really  irrational  death,  for 
the  pitiable  substance  of  the  shell  determines  how  long 
the  kernel  shall  exist.  The  pining,  sottish  prison-warder 
decides  the  hour  at  which  his  noble  prisoner  is  to  die.  . . . 
The  enlightened  regulation  and  control  of  death  belongs 
to  the  morality  of  the  future.  At  present  religion  makes 
it  seem  immoral,  for  religion  presupposes  that  when  the 
time  for  death  comes,  God  gives  the  command.”  2 

The  Attitude  at  Death.  — Nietzsche  rejects  entirely 
that  pious  belief  in  signs  and  portents  which  sees  a signifi- 
cance in  death-bed  confessions  and  “ dying  words.” 
The  average  man,  he  says,  dies  pretty  much  as  he  has 
lived,  and  in  this  Dr.  Osier3  and  other  unusually  com- 
petent and  accurate  observers  agree  with  him.  When 
the  dying  man  exhibits  unusual  emotions  or  expresses 
ideas  out  of  tune  with  his  known  creed,  the  explanation 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that,  toward  the  time  of  death 
the  mind  commonly  gives  way  and  the  customary  proc- 
esses of  thought  are  disordered.  “ The  way  in  which  a 
man  thinks  of  death,  in  the  full  bloom  of  his  life  and 
strength,  is  certainly  a good  index  of  his  general  character 
and  habits  of  mind,  but  at  the  hour  of  death  itself  his 
attitude  is  of  little  importance  or  significance.  The 
exhaustion  of  the  last  hours  — especially  when  an  old 

1 “ Also  sprach  Zarathustra I. 

2 “ Menschliches  allzn  Menschlich.es III,  § 185. 

3 “ Science  and  Immortality,”  New  York,  1904. 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


229 


man  is  dying  — the  irregular  or  insufficient  nourishment 
of  the  brain,  the  occasional  spasms  of  severe  physical 
pain,  the  horror  and  novelty  of  the  whole  situation,  the 
atavistic  return  of  early  impressions  and  superstitions, 
and  the  feeling  that  death  is  a thing  unutterably  vast  and 
important  and  that  bridges  of  an  awful  kind  are  about  to 
be  crossed  — all  of  these  things  make  it  irrational  to 
accept  a man’s  attitude  at  death  as  an  indication  of  his 
character  during  life.  Moreover,  it  is  not  true  that  a 
dying  man  is  -more  honest  than  a man  in  full  vigor.  On 
the  contrary,  almost  every  dying  man  is  led,  by  the  so- 
lemnity of  those  at  his  bedside,  and  by  their  restrained 
or  flowing  torrents  of  tears,  to  conscious  or  unconscious 
conceit  and  make-believe.  He  becomes,  in  brief,  an  actor 
in  a comedy.  . . . No  doubt  the  seriousness  with  which 
every  dying  man  is  treated  has  given  many  a poor  devil 
his  only  moment  of  real  triumph  and  enjoyment.  He  is, 
ipso  jacto,  the  star  of  the  play,  and  so  he  is  indemnified 
for  a life  of  privation  and  subservience.”  1 

The  Origin  0]  Philosophy.  — Nietzsche  believed  that 
introspection  and  self-analysis,  as  they  were  ordinarily 
manifested,  were  signs  of  disease,  and  that  the  higher 
man  and  superman  would  waste  little  time  upon  them. 
The  first  thinkers,  he  said,  were  necessarily  sufferers, 
for  it  was  only  suffering  that  made  a man  think  and  only 
disability  that  gave  him  leisure  to  do  so.  “ Under  primi- 
tive conditions,”  he  said,  “ the  individual,  fully  conscious 
of  his  power,  is  ever  intent  upon  transforming  it  into 
action.  Sometimes  this  action  takes  the  form  of  hunting, 
robbery,  ambuscade,  maltreatment  or  murder,  and  at 

1 “ Menschliches  allzu  Me7ischliches''  II,  § 88. 


230 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


other  times  it  appears  as  those  feebler  imitations  of  these 
things  which  alone  are  countenanced  by  the  community. 
But  when  the  individual’s  power  declines  — when  he 
feels  fatigued,  ill,  melancholy  or  satiated,  and  in  conse- 
quence, temporarily  lacks  the  yearning  to  function  — 
he  is  a comparatively  better  and  less  dangerous  man. 
That  is  to  say,  he  contents  himself  with  thinking  instead 
of  doing,  and  so  puts  into  thought  and  words  “ his  im- 
pressions and  feelings  regarding  his  companions,  his 
wife  or  his  gods.”  Naturally  enough,  since  his  efficiency 
is  lowered  and  his  mood  is  gloomy  his  judgments  are  evil 
ones.  He  finds  fault  and  ponders  revenges.  He  gloats 
over  enemies  or  envies  his  friends.  “ In  such  a state  of 
mind  he  turns  prophet  and  so  adds  to  his  store  of  super- 
stitions or  devises  new  acts  of  devotion  or  prophesies  the 
downfall  of  his  enemies.  Whatever  he  thinks,  his  thoughts 
reflect  his  state  of  mind : his  fear  and  weariness  are  more 
than  normal;  his  tendency  to  action  and  enjoyment  are 
less  than  normal.  Herein  we  see  the  genesis  of  the  poetic, 
thoughtful,  priestly  mood.  Evil  thoughts  must  rule 
supreme  therein.  ...  In  later  stages  of  culture,  there 
arose  a caste  of  poets,  thinkers,  priests  and  medicine  men 
who  all  acted  the  same  as,  in  earlier  years,  individuals 
used  to  act  in  their  comparatively  rare  hours  of  illness 
and  depression.  These  persons  led  sad,  inactive  lives 
and  judged  maliciously.  . . . The  masses,  perhaps, 
yearned  to  turn  them  out  of  the  community,  because  they 
were  parasites,  but  in  this  enterprise  there  was  great  risk, 
because  these  men  were  on  terms  of  familiarity  with  the 
gods  and  so  possessed  vast  and  mysterious  power.  Thus 
the  most  ancient  philosophers  were  viewed.  The  masses 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


231 


hearkened  unto  them  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
dread  they  inspired.  In  such  a way  contemplation  made 
its  appearance  in  the  world,  with  an  evil  heart  and  a 
troubled  head.  It  was  both  weak  and  terrible,  and  both 
secretly  abhorred  and  openly  worshipped.  . . . Pudenda 
or i go  I ” 1 

Priestcraft.  — So  long  as  man  feels  capable  of  taking 
care  of  himself  he  has  no  need  of  priests  to  intercede  for 
him  with  the  deity.  Efficiency  is  proverbially  identified 
with  impiety : it  is  only  when  the  devil  is  sick  that  the 
devil  a monk  would  be.  Therefore  “ the  priest  must  be 
regarded  as  the  saviour,  shepherd  and  advocate  of  the 
sick.  ...  It  is  his  providence  to  rule  over  the  sufferers. 
...”  In  order  that  he  may  understand  them  and  appeal 
to  them  he  must  be  sick  himself,  and  to  attain  this  end 
there  is  the  device  of  asceticism.  The  purpose  of  asceti- 
cism, as  we  have  seen,  is  to  make  a man  voluntarily  destroy 
his  own  efficiency.  But  the  priest  must  have  a certain 
strength,  nevertheless,  for  he  must  inspire  both  confidence 
and  dread  in  his  charges,  and  must  be  able  to  defend 
them — -against  whom?  “Undoubtedly  against  the 
sound  and  strong.  ...  He  must  be  the  natural  adver- 
sary and  despiser  of  all  barbarous,  impetuous,  unbridled, 
fierce,  violent,  beast-of-prey  healthiness  and  power.” 
Thus  he  must  fashion  himself  into  a new  sort  of  fighter  — • 
“ a new  zoological  terror,  in  which  the  polar  bear,  the 
nimble  and  cool  tiger  and  the  fox  are  blended  into  a 
unity  as  attractive  as  it  is  awe-inspiring.”  He  appears 
in  the  midst  of  the  strong  as  “ the  herald  and  mouth- 

1 “ Morgenrote"  § 42. 

’ “ Zur  Geneologie  der  Moral"  III,  II  to  17. 


232 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


piece  of  mysterious  powers,  with  the  determination  to 
sow  upon  the  soil,  whenever  and  wherever  possible,  the 
seeds  of  suffering,  dissension  and  contradiction.  . . . 
Undoubtedly  he  brings  balms  and  balsams  with  him,  but 
he  must  first  inflict  the  wound,  before  he  may  act  as 
physician.  ...  It  is  only  the  unpleasantness  of  disease 
that  is  combated  by  him  — not  the  cause,  not  the  disease 
itself ! ” He  dispenses,  not  specifics,  but  narcotics.  He 
brings  surcease  from  sorrow,  not  by  showing  men  how 
to  attain  the  happiness  of  efficiency,  but  by  teaching  them 
that  their  sufferings  have  been  laid  upon  them  by  a god 
who  will  one  day  repay  them  with  bliss  illimitable. 

God.  — “A  god  who  is  omniscient  and  omnipotent 
and  yet  neglects  to  make  his  wishes  and  intentions 
certainly  known  to  his  creatures  — certainly  this  is  not 
a god  of  goodness.  One  who  for  thousands  of  years  has 
allowed  the  countless  scruples  and  doubts  of  men  to 
afflict  them  and  yet  holds  out  terrible  consequences  for 
involuntary  errors  — certainly  this  is  not  a god  of  justice. 
Is  he  not  a cruel  god  if  he  knows  the  truth  and  yet  looks 
down  upon  millions  miserably  searching  for  it  ? Perhaps 
he  is  good,  but  is  unable  to  communicate  with  his  creatures 
more  intelligibly.  Perhaps  he  is  wanting  in  intelligence  — 
or  in  eloquence.  So  much  the  worse ! For,  in  that  case, 
he  may  be  mistaken  in  what  he  calls  the  truth.  He  may, 
indeed,  be  a brother  to  the  ‘ poor,  duped  devils  ’ below 
him.  If  so,  must  he  not  suffer  agonies  on  seeing  his  crea- 
tures, in  their  struggle  for  knowledge  of  him,  submit  to 
tortures  for  all  eternity?  Must  it  not  strike  him  with 
grief  to  realize  that  he  cannot  advise  them  or  help  them, 
except  by  uncertain  and  ambiguous  signs?  ...  All 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


233 


religions  bear  traces  of  the  fact  that  they  arose  during  the 
intellectual  immaturity  of  the  human  race  — before  it 
had  learned  the  obligation  to  speak  the  truth.  Not  one 
of  them  makes  it  the  duty  of  its  god  to  be  truthful  and 
understandable  in  his  communications  with  man.”  1 
Self-Control.  — Self-control,  says  Nietzsche,  consists 
merely  in  combating  a given  desire  with  a stronger  one. 
Thus  the  yearning  to  commit  a murder  may  be  combated 
and  overcome  by  the  yearning  to  escape  the  gallows  and 
to  retain  the  name  and  dignity  of  a law-abiding  citizen. 
The  second  yearning  is  as  much  unconscious  and  in- 
stinctive as  the  first,  and  in  the  battle  between  them  the 
intellect  plays  but  a small  part.  In  general  there  are  but 
six  ways  in  which  a given  craving  may  be  overcome. 
First,  we  may  avoid  opportunities  for  its  gratification  and 
so,  by  a long  disuse,  weaken  and  destroy  it.  Secondly, 
we  may  regulate  its  gratification,  and  by  thus  encom- 
passing its  flux  and  reflux  within  fixed  limits,  gain 
intervals  during  which  it  is  faint.  Thirdly,  we  may 
intentionally  give  ourselves  over  to  it  and  so  wear  it  out 
by  excess  — provided  we  do  not  act  like  the  rider  who 
lets  a runaway  horse  gallop  itself  to  death  and,  in  so  doing, 
breaks  his  own  neck,  — which  unluckily  is  the  rule  in 
this  method.  Fourthly,  by  an  intellectual  trick,  we  may 
associate  gratification  with  an  unpleasant  idea,  as  we 
have  associated  sexual  gratification,  for  example,  with 
the  idea  of  indecency.  Fifthly,  we  may  find  a substitute 
in  some  other  craving  that  is  measurably  less  dangerous. 
Sixthly,  we  may  find  safety  in  a general  war  upon  all 
cravings,  good  agd  bad  alike,  after  the  manner  of  the 

1 “ Morgenrote § 91. 


234 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


ascetic,  who,  in  seeking  to  destroy  his  sensuality,  at  the 
same  time  destroys  his  physical  strength,  his  reason  and, 
not  infrequently,  his  life. 

The  Beautiful.  — Man’s  notion  of  beauty  is  the  fruit 
of  his  delight  in  his  own  continued  existence.  Whatever 
makes  this  existence  easy,  or  is  associated,  in  any 
manner,  with  life  or  vigor,  seems  to  him  to  be 
beautiful.  “ Man  mirrors  himself  in  things.  He 
counts  everything  beautiful  which  reflects  his  likeness. 
The  word  ‘ beautiful  ’ represents  the  conceit  of  his 
species.  . . . Nothing  is  truly  ugly  except  the  degenera- 
ting man.  But  other  things  are  called  ugly,  too,  when 
they  happen  to  weaken  or  trouble  man.  They  remind 
him  of  impotence,  deterioration  and  danger:  in  their 
presence  he  actually  suffers  a loss  of  power.  Therefore 
he  calls  them  ugly.  Whenever  man  is  at  all  depressed  he 
has  an  intuition  of  the  proximity  of  something  ‘ ugly.’ 
His  sense  of  power,  his  will  to  power,  his  feeling  of  pride 
and  efficiency  — all  sink  with  the  ugly  and  rise  with  the 
beautiful.  The  ugly  is  instinctively  understood  to  be  a 
sign  and  symptom  of  degeneration.  That  which  reminds 
one,  in  the  remotest  degree,  of  degeneracy  seems  ugly. 
Every  indication  of  exhaustion,  heaviness,  age,  or  lassi- 
tude, every  constraint  — such  as  cramp  or  paralysis  — 
and  above  all,  every  odor,  color  or  counterfeit  of  decom- 
position — though  it  may  be  no  more  than  a far-fetched 
symbol  — calls  forth  the  idea  of  ugliness.  Aversion  is 
thereby  excited  — man’s  aversion  to  the  decline  of  his 
type.”  1 The  phrase  “ art  for  art’s  sake  ” voices  a protest 
against  subordinating  art  to  morality  — that  is,  against 

• “ Gotzendammerung,"  IX,  § 19. 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


235 


making  it  a device  for  preaching  sermons  — but  as  a matter 
of  fact,  all  art  must  praise  and  glorify  and  so  must  lay 
down  values.  It  is  the  function  of  the  artist,  indeed,  to 
select,  to  choose,  to  bring  into  prominence.  The  very 
fact  that  he  is  able  to  do  this  makes  us  call  him  an  artist. 
And  when  do  we  approve  his  choice  ? Only  when  it  agrees 
with  our  fundamental  instinct  — only  when  it  exhibits 
“ the  desirableness  of  life.”  “ Therefore  art  is  the  great 
stimulus  to  life.  We  cannot  conceive  it  as  being  pur- 
poseless or  aimless.  ‘ Art  for  art’s  sake  ’ is  a phrase  with- 
out meaning.” 1 

Liberty.  — The  worth  of  a thing  often  lies,  not  in 
what  one  attains  by  it,  but  in  the  difficulty  one  experiences 
in  getting  it.  The  struggle  for  political  liberty,  for  ex- 
ample, has  done  more  than  any  other  one  thing  to  develop 
strength,  courage  and  resourcefulness  in  the  human  race, 
and  yet  liberty  itself,  as  we  know  it  today,  is  nothing 
more  or  less  than  organized  morality,  and  as  such,  is 
necessarily  degrading  and  degenerating.  “ It  under- 
mines the  will  to  power,  it  levels  the  racial  mountains 
and  valleys,  it  makes  man  small,  cowardly  and  voluptuous. 
Under  political  liberty  the  herd-animal  always  triumphs.” 
But  the  very  fight  to  attain  this  burdensome  equality 
develops  the  self-reliance  and  unconformity  which  stand 
opposed  to  it,  and  these  qualities  often  persist.  Warfare, 
in  brief,  makes  men  fit  for  real,  as  opposed  to  political 
freedom.  “ And  what  is  freedom  ? The  will  to  be 
responsible  for  one’s  self.  The  will  to  keep  that  distance 
which  separates  man  from  man.  The  will  to  become 
indifferent  to  hardship,  severity,  privation  and  even  to 


* “ Gitzen da m m erutig, ' ’ IX,  § 24. 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


236 

life.  The  will  to  sacrifice  men  to  one’s  cause  and  to 
sacrifice  one’s  self,  too.  . . . The  man  who  is  truly  free 
tramples  under  foot  the  contemptible  species  of  well- 
being dreamt  of  by  shop-keepers,  Christians,  cows, 
women,  Englishmen  and  other  democrats.  The  free 
man  is  a warrior.  . . . How  is  freedom  to  be  measured  ? 
By  the  resistance  it  has  to  overcome  — by  the  effort 
required  to  maintain  it.  We  must  seek  the  highest  type 
of  freemen  where  the  highest  resistance  must  be  constantly 
overcome : five  paces  from  tyranny,  close  to  the  threshold 
of  thraldom  ....  Those  peoples  who  were  worth 
something,  who  became  worth  something,  never  acquired 
their  greatness  under  political  liberty.  Great  danger 
made  something  of  them  — danger  of  that  sort  which 
first  teaches  us  to  know  our  resources,  our  virtues,  our 
shields  and  swords,  our  genius  — which  compels  us  to 
be  strong.”  1 

Science  — The  object  of  all  science  is  to  keep  us  from 
drawing  wrong  inferences  — from  jumping  to  conclu- 
sions. Thus  it  stands  utterly  opposed  to  all  faith  and  is 
essentially  iconoclastic  and  skeptical.  “ The  wonderful 
in  science  is  the  reverse  of  the  wonderful  in  juggling. 
The  juggler  tries  to  make  us  see  a very  simple  relation 
between  things  which,  in  point  of  fact,  have  no  relation 
at  all.  The  scientist,  on  the  contrary,  compels  us  to  aban- 
don our  belief  in  simple  casualities  and  to  see  the  enormous 
complexity  of  phenomena.  The  simplest  things,  indeed, 
are  extremely  complex  — a fact  which  will  never  cease 
to  make  us  wonder.”  The  effect  of  science  is  to  show  the 
absurdity  of  attempting  to  reach  perfect  happiness  and 

* “ G dtzendam merung”  IX,  § 38. 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


237 


the  impossibility  of  experiencing  utter  woe.  “ The  gulf 
between  the  highest  pitch  of  happiness  and  the  lowest 
depth  of  misery  has  been  created  by  imaginary  things.”  1 
That  is  to  say,  the  heights  of  religious  exaltation  and  the 
depths  of  religious  fear  and  trembling  are  alike  creatures 
of  our  own  myth-making.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
perfect  and  infinite  bliss  in  heaven  and  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  eternal  damnation  in  hell.  Hereafter  our  highest 
happiness  must  be  less  than  that  of  the  martyrs  who  saw 
the  heavenly  gates  opening  for  them,  and  our  worst  woe 
must  be  less  than  that  of  those  medieval  sinners  who  died 
shrieking  and  trembling  and  with  the  scent  of  brim- 
stone in  their  noses.  This  space  is  being  reduced 
further  and  further  by  science,  just  as  through  science 
we  have  learned  to  make  the  earth  occupy  less  and 
less  space  in  the  universe,  until  it  now  seems  infinitely 
small  and  our  whole  solar  system  appears  as  a mere 
point.”  2 

The  Jews.  — For  the  Jewish  slave-morality  which 
prevails  in  the  western  world  today,  under  the  label  of 
Christianity,  Nietzsche  had,  as  we  know,  the  most  violent 
aversion  and  contempt,  but  he  saw  very  clearly  that  this 
same  morality  admirably  served  and  fitted  the  Jews 
themselves;  that  it  had  preserved  them  through  long 
ages  and  against  powerful  enemies,  and  that  its  very 
persistence  proved  alike  its  own  ingenuity  and  the  vitality 
of  its  inventors  as  a race.  “ The  Jews,”  said  Nietzsche, 
“ will  either  become  the  masters  of  Europe  or  lose  Europe, 
as  they  once  lost  Egypt,  And  it  seems  to  be  improbable 
that  they  will  lose  again.  In  Europe,  for  eighteen  centuries, 

1 “ Morgenrote § 6.  2 “ Morgen-rote?  § 7. 


238 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


they  have  passed  through  a school  more  terrible  than 
that  known  to  any  other  nation,  and  the  experiences  of 
this  time  of  stress  and  storm  have  benefited  the  individual 
even  more  than  the  community.  In  consequence,  the 
resourcefulness  and  alertness  of  the  modern  Jew  are 
extraordinary.  ...  In  times  of  extremity,  the  people 
of  Israel  less  often  sought  refuge  in  drink  or  suicide  than 
any  other  race  of  Europe.  Today,  every  Jew  finds  in  the 
history  of  his  forebears  a voluminous  record  of  coolness 
and  perseverance  in  terrible  predicaments  — of  artful 
cunning  and  clever  fencing  with  chance  and  misfortune. 
The  Jews  have  hid  their  bravery  under  the  cloak  of 
submissiveness;  their  heroism  in  facing  contempt  sur- 
passes that  of  the  saints.  People  tried  to  make  them 
contemptible  for  twenty  centuries  by  refusing  them  all 
honors  and  dignities  and  by  pushing  them  down  into 
the  mean  trades.  The  process  did  not  make  them  cleaner, 
alas ! but  neither  did  it  make  them  contemptible.  They 
have  never  ceased  to  believe  themselves  qualified  for  the 
highest  of  activities.  They  have  never  failed  to  show  the 
virtues  of  all  suffering  peoples.  Their  manner  of  honor- 
ing their  parents  and  their  children  and  the  reasonable- 
ness of  their  marriage  customs  make  them  conspicuous 
among  Europeans.  Besides,  they  have  learned  how  to  de- 
rive a sense  of  power  from  the  very  trades  forced  upon 
them.  We  cannot  help  observing,  in  excuse  for  their 
usury,  that  without  this  pleasant  means  of  inflicting 
, torture  upon  their  oppressors,  they  might  have  lost 
their  self-respect  ages  ago,  for  self-respect  depends 
upon  being  able  to  make  reprisals.  Moreover,  their 
vengeance  has  never  carried  them  too  far,  for  they 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


239 


have  that  liberality  which  comes  from  frequent  changes 
of  place,  climate,  customs  and  neighbors.  They  have 
more  experience  of  men  than  any  other  race  and 
even  in  their  passions  there  appears  a caution  born 
of  this  experience.  They  are  so  sure  of  themselves  that, 
even  in  their  bitterest  straits,  they  never  earn  their  bread 
by  manual  labor  as  common  workmen,  porters  or  peas- 
ants. . . . Their  manners,  it  may  be  admitted,  teach  us 
that  they  have  never  been  inspired  by  chivalrous,  noble 
feelings,  nor  their  bodies  girt  with  beautiful  arms:  a 
certain  vulgarity  always  alternates  with  their  submissive- 
ness. But  now  they  are  intermarrying  with  the  gentlest 
blood  of  Europe,  and  in  another  hundred  years  they  will 
have  enough  good  manners  to  save  them  from  making 
themselves  ridiculous,  as  masters,  in  the  sight  of  those 
they  have  subdued.”  It  was  Nietzsche’s  belief  that  the 
Jews  would  take  the  lead  before  long,  in  the  intellectual 
progress  of  the  world.  He  thought  that  their  training, 
as  a race,  fitted  them  for  this  leadership.  “ Where,”  he 
asked,  “ shall  the  accumulated  wealth  of  great  impressions 
which  forms  the  history  of  every  Jewish  family  — that 
great  wealth  of  passions,  virtues,  resolutions,  resignations, 
struggles  and  victories  of  all  sorts  — where  shall  it  find 
an  outlet,  if  not  in  great  intellectual  functioning?  ” The 
Jews,  he  thought,  would  be  safe  guides  for  mankind,  once 
they  were  set  free  from  their  slave-morality  and  all  need 
of  it.  “ Then  again,”  he  said,  “ the  old  God  of 
the  Jews  may  rejoice  in  Himself,  in  His  creation  and  in 
His  chosen  people  — and  all  of  us  will  rejoice  with 
Him.”  1 


1 “ Morgenr  'ote,"  § 205. 


240 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


The  Gentleman.  — A million  sages  and  diagnosticians, 
in  all  ages  of  the  world,  have  sought  to  define  the  gentle- 
man, and  their  definitions  have  been  as  varied  as  their 
own  minds.  Nietzsche’s  definition  is  based  upon  the 
obvious  fact  that  the  gentleman  is  ever  a man  of  more  than 
average  influence  and  power,  and  the  further  fact  that 
this  superiority  is  admitted  by  all.  The  vulgarian  may 
boast  of  his  bluff  honesty,  but  at  heart  he  looks  up  to  the 
gentleman,  who  goes  through  life  serene  and  imperturb- 
able. There  is  in  the  latter,  in  truth,  an  unmistakable 
air  of  fitness  and  efficiency,  and  it  is  this  which  makes  it 
possible  for  him  to  be  gentle  and  to  regard  those  below 
him  with  tolerance.  “ The  demeanor  of  high-born 
persons,”  says  Nietzsche,  “ shows  plainly  that  in  their 
minds  the  consciousness  of  power  is  ever-present.  Above 
all  things,  they  strive  to  avoid  a show  of  weakness,  whether 
it  takes  the  form  of  inefficiency  or  of  a too-easy  yielding 
to  passion  or  emotion.  They  never  sink  exhausted  into 
a chair.  On  the  train,  when  the  vulgar  try  to  make  them- 
selves comfortable,  these  higher  folk  avoid  reclining. 
They  do  not  seem  to  get  tired  after  hours  of  standing  at 
court.  They  do  not  furnish  their  houses  in  a comfortable, 
but  in  a spacious  and  dignified  manner,  as  if  they  were 
the  abodes  of  a greater  and  taller  race  of  beings.  To 
a provoking  speech,  they  reply  with  politeness  and  self- 
possession  — and  not  as  if  horrified,  crushed,  abashed, 
enraged  or  out  of  breath,  after  the  manner  of  plebeians. 
The  aristocrat  knows  how  to  preserve  the  appearance  of 
ever-present  physical  strength,  and  he  knows,  too,  how  to 
convey  the  impression  that  his  soul  and  intellect  are  a 
match  to  all  dangers  and  surprises,  by  keeping  up  an 


SUNDRY  IDEAS 


241 


unchanging  serenity  and  civility,  even  under  the  most 
trying  circumstances.”  1 

Dreams.  ■ — Dreams  are  symptoms  of  the  eternal  law 
of  compensation.  In  our  waking  hours  we  develop  a 
countless  horde  of  yearnings,  cravings  and  desires,  and 
by  the  very  nature  of  things,  the  majority  of  them  must 
go  ungratified.  The  feeling  that  something  is  wanting, 
thus  left  within  us,  is  met  and  satisfied  by  our  imaginary 
functionings  during  sleep.  That  is  to  say,  dreams  repre- 
sent the  reaction  of  our  yearnings  upon  the  phenomena 
actually  encountered  during  sleep  — the  motions  of  our 
blood  and  intestines,  the  pressure  of  the  bedclothes, 
the  sounds  of  church-bells,  domestic  animals,  etc.,  and 
the  state  of  the  atmosphere.  These  phenomena  are 
fairly  constant,  but  our  dreams  vary  widely  on  successive 
nights.  Therefore,  the  variable  factor  is  represented  by 
the  yearnings  we  harbor  as  we  go  to  bed.  Thus,  the 
man  who  loves  music  and  must  go  without  it  all  day, 
hears  celestial  harmonies  in  his  sleep.  Thus  the  slave 
dreams  of  soaring  like  an  eagle.  Thus  the  prisoner 
dreams  that  he  is  free  and  the  sailor  that  he  is  safely  at 
home.  Inasmuch  as  the  number  of  our  conscious  and  un- 
conscious desires,  each  day,  is  infinite,  there  is  an  infinite 
variety  in  dreams.  But  always  the  relation  set  forth 
may  be  predicated. 


1 “ Morgenrote ,”  § 201. 


XIV 


NIETZSCHE  VS.  WAGNER 

Nietzsche  believed  in  heroes  and,  in  his  youth,  was 
a hero  worshipper.  First  Arthur  Schopenhauer’s  be- 
spectacled visage  stared  from  his  shrine  and  after  that 
the  place  of  sacredness  and  honor  was  held  by  Richard 
Wagner.  When  the  Wagner  of  the  philosopher’s  dreams 
turned  into  a Wagner  of  very  prosaic  flesh  and  blood, 
there  came  a time  of  doubt  and  stress  and  suffering  for 
poor  Nietzsche.  But  he  had  courage  as  well  as  loyalty, 
and  in  the  end  he  dashed  his  idol  to  pieces  and  crunched* 
the  bits  underfoot.  Faith,  doubt,  anguish,  disillusion  — 
it  is  not  a rare  sequence  in  this  pitiless  and  weary  old 
world. 

Those  sapient  critics  who  hold  that  Nietzsche  discredited 
his  own  philosophy  by  constantly  writing  against  him- 
self, find  their  chief  ammunition  in  his  attitude  toward 
the  composer  of  “ Tristan  und  Isolde .”  In  the  decade 
from  1869  to  1878  the  philosopher  was  the  king  of  Ger- 
man Wagnerians.  In  the  decade  from  1879  to  1889,  he 
was  the  most  bitter,  the  most  violent,  the  most  resourceful 
and  the  most  effective  of  Wagner’s  enemies.  On  their  face 
these  things  seem  to  indicate  a complete  change  of  front 
and  a careful  examination  bears  out  the  thought.  But 

242 


NIETZSCHE  VS.  WAGNER 


243 


the  same  careful  examination  reveals  another  fact:  that 
the  change  of  front  was  made,  not  by  Nietzsche,  but  by 
Wagner. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  philosopher  was  an  ardent  musician 
from  boyhood  and  so  it  was  not  unnatural  that  he  should 
be  among  the  first  to  recognize  Wagner’s  genius.  The 
sheer  musicianship  of  the  man  overwhelmed  him  and  he 
tells  us  that  from  the  moment  the  piano  transcription  of 
“ Tristan  und  Isolde  ” was  printed  he  was  a Wagnerian. 
The  music  was  bold  and  daring:  it  struck  out  into 
regions  that  the  siisslich  sentimentality  of  Donizetti  and 
Bellini  and  the  pallid  classicism  of  Beethoven  and  Bach 
had  never  even  approached.  In  Wagner  Nietzsche  saw 
a man  of  colossal  originality  and  sublime  courage,  who 
thought  for  himself  and  had  skill  at  making  his  idea?1 
comprehensible  to  others.  The  opera  of  the  past  had 
been  a mere  potpourri  of  songs,  strung  together  upon  a 
filament  of  banal  recitative.  The  opera  of  Wagner  was 
a symmetrical  and  homogeneous  whole,  in  which  the 
music  was  unthinkable  without  the  poetry  and  the  poetrv 
impossible  without  the  music. 

Nietzsche,  at  the  time,  was  saturated  with  Schopen- 
hauer’s brand  of  individualism,  and  intensely  eager  to 
apply  it  to  realities.  In  Wagner  he  saw  a living,  breathing 
individualist  — a man  who  scorned  the  laws  and  customs 
of  his  craft  and  dared  to  work  out  his  own  salvation  in 
his  own  way.  And  when  fate  made  it  possible  for  him 
to  meet  Wagner,  he  found  the  composer  preaching  as 
well  as  practising  individualism.  In  a word,  Wagner 
was  well  nigh  as  enthusiastic  a Schopenhauerean  as 
Nietzsche  himself.  His  individualism  almost  touched 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


244 

the  boundary  of  anarchy.  He  had  invented  a new  art 
of  music  and  he  was  engaged  in  the  exciting  task  of 
smashing  the  old  one-  to  make  room  for  it. 

Nietzsche  met  Wagner  in  Leipsic  and  was  invited  to 
visit  the  composer  at  his  home  near  Tribschen,  a suburb 
of  Lucerne.  He  accepted,  and  on  May  15,  1869,  got  his 
first  glimpse  of  that  queer  household  in  which  the  erratic 
Richard,  the  ingenious  Cosima  and  little  Siegfried  lived 
and  had  their  being.  When  he  moved  to  Basel,  he  was 
not  far  from  Tribschen  and  so  he  fell  into  the  habit  of 
going  there  often  and  staying  long.  He  came,  indeed,  to 
occupy  the  position  of  an  adopted  son,  and  spent  the 
Christmas  of  1869  and  that  of  1870  under  the  Wagner 
rooftree.  This  last  fact  alone  is  sufficient  to  show  the 
intimate  footing  upon  which  he  stood.  Christmas, 
among  the  Germans,  is  essentially  a family  festival  and 
mere  friends  are  seldom  asked  to  share  its  joys. 

Nietzsche  and  Wagner  had  long  and  riotous  disputa- 
tions at  Tribschen,  but  in  all  things  fundamental  they 
agreed.  Together  they  accepted  Schopenhauer’s  data 
and  together  they  began  to  diverge  from  his  conclusions. 
Nietzsche  saw  in  Wagner  that  old  dionysian  spirit  which 
had  saved  Greek  art.  The  music  of  the  day  was  colorless 
and  coldblooded.  A too  rigid  formalism  stood  in  the 
way  of  all  expression  of  actual  life.  Wagner  proposed  to 
batter  this  formalism  to  pieces  and  Nietzsche  was  his 
prophet  and  claque. 

It  was  this  enthusiasm,  indeed,  which  determined  the 
plan  of  “ Die  Geburt  der  Tragodie.”  Nietzsche  had 
conceived  it  as  a mere  treatise  upon  the  philosophy  of 
the  Greek  drama.  His  ardor  as  an  apostle,  his  yearning 


NIETZSCHE  VS.  WAGNER 


245 


to  convert  the  stolid  Germans,  his  wild  desire  to  do 
something  practical  and  effective  for  Wagner,  made  him 
turn  it  into  a gospel  of  the  new  art.  To  him  Wagner  was 
Dionysus,  and  the  whole  of  his  argument  against 
Apollo  was  nothing  more  than  an  argument  against 
classicism  and  for  the  Wagnerian  romanticism.  It  was 
a bomb-shell  and  its  explosion  made  Germany  stare,  but 
another  — perhaps  many  more  — were  needed  to  shake 
the  foundations  of  philistinism.  Nietzsche  loaded  the 
next  one  carefully  and  hurled  it  at  him  who  stood  at  the 
very  head  of  that  self-satisfied  conservatism  which  lay 
upon  all  Germany.  This  man  was  David  Strauss.  Strauss 
was  the  prophet  of  the  good-enough.  He  taught  that 
German  art  was  sound,  that  German  culture  was  perfect. 
Nietzsche  saw  in  him  the  foe  of  Dionysus  and  made  an 
example  of  him.  In  every  word  of  that  scintillating 
philippic  there  was  a plea  for  the  independence  and 
individualism  and  outlawry  that  the  philosopher  saw  in 
Wagner. 1 

Unluckily  the  disciple  here  ran  ahead  of  the  master 
and  before  long  Nietzsche  began  to  realize  that  he  and 
Wagner  were  drifting  apart.  So  long  as  they  met  upon 

1 That  Wagner  gave  Nietzsche  good  reason  to  credit  him  with  these 
qualities  is  amply  proved.  “ I have  never  read  anything  better  than 
your  book,”  wrote  the  composer  in  1872.  “ It  is  masterly.”  And 

Frau  Cosima  and  Liszt,  who  were  certainly  familiar  with  Wagner’s 
ideas,  supported  Nietzsche’s  assumption,  too.  “ Oh,  how  fine  is  your 
book,”  wrote  the  former,  “ how  fine  and  how  deep  — how  deep  and  how 
keen!”  Liszt  sent  from  Prague  (Feb.  29,  1872)  a pompous,  patron- 
izing letter.  “ I have  read  your  book  twice,”  he  said.  In  all  of  this  corre- 
spondence there  is  no  hint  that  Nietzsche  had  misunderstood  Wagner’s 
position  or  had  laid  down  any  propositions  from  which  the  composer 
dissented. 


246 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


the  safe  ground  of  Schopenhauer’s  data,  the  two  agreed, 
but  after  Nietzsche  began  to  work  out  his  inevitable 
conclusions,  Wagner  abandoned  him.  To  put  it  plainly, 
Wagner  was  the  artist  before  he  was  the  philosopher,  and 
when  philosophy  began  to  grow  ugly  he  turned  from  it 
without  regret  or  qualm  of  conscience.  Theoretically, 
he  saw  things  as  Nietzsche  saw  them,  but  as  an  artist  he 
could  not  afford  to  be  too  literal.  It  was  true  enough, 
perhaps,  that  self-sacrifice  was  a medieval  superstition, 
but  all  the  same  it  made  effective  heroes  on  the  stage. 

Nietzsche  was  utterly  unable,  throughout  his  life,  to 
acknowledge  anything  but  hypocrisy  or  ignorance  in 
those  who  descended  to  such  compromises.  When  he 
wrote  “ Richard  Wagner  in  Bayreuth  ” he  was  already 
the  prey  of  doubts,  but  it  is  probable  that  he  still  saw  the 
u ifs  ” and  “ buts  ” in  Wagner’s  individualism  but 
dimly.  He  could  not  realize,  in  brief,  that  a composer 
who  fought  beneath  the  banner  of  truth,  against  custom 
and  convention,  could  ever  turn  aside  from  the  battle. 
Wagner  agreed  with  Nietzsche,  perhaps,  that  European 
civilization  and  its  child,  the  European  art  of  the  day, 
were  founded  upon  lies,  but  he  was  artist  enough  to  see 
that,  without  these  lies,  it  would  be  impossible  to  make 
art  understandable  to  the  public.  So  in  his  librettos  he 
employed  all  of  the  old  fallacies  — that  love  has  the 
supernatural  power  of  making  a bad  man  good,  that  one 
man  may  save  the  soul  of  another,  that  humility  is  a 
virtue. 1 

It  is  obvious  from  this,  that  the  apostate  was  not  Niet- 

1 There  is  an  interesting  discussion  of  this  in  James  Huneker’s  book, 
“Mezzotints  in  Modern  Music,”  page  285  et.  seq..  New  York,  1899. 


NIETZSCHE  VS.  WAGNER 


247 


zsche,  but  Wagner.  Nietzsche  started  out  in  life  as  a 
seeker  after  truth,  and  he  sought  the  truth  his  whole  life 
long,  without  regarding  for  an  instant  the  risks  and 
dangers  and  consequences  of  the  quest.  Wagner,  so  long 
as  it  remained  a mere  matter  of  philosophical  disputa- 
tion, was  equally  radical  and  courageous,  but  he  saw  very 
clearly  that  it  was  necessary  to  compromise  with  tradition 
in  his  operas.  He  was  an  atheist  and  a mocker  of  the 
gods,  but  the  mystery  and  beauty  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
ritual  appealed  to  his  artistic  sense,  and  so,  instead  of 
penning  an  opera  in  which  the  hero  spouted  aphorisms 
by  Huxley,  he  wrote  “ Parsifal  And  in  the  same  way, 
in  his  other  music  dramas,  he  made  artistic  use  of  all  the 
ancient  fallacies  and  devices  in  the  lumber  room  of 
chivalry.  He  was,  indeed,  a philosopher  in  his  hours  of 
leisure  only.  When  he  was  at  work  over  his  music  paper, 
he  saw  that  St.  Ignatius  was  a far  more  effective  and 
appealing  figure  than  Herbert  Spencer  and  that  the  con- 
ventional notion  that  marriage  was  a union  of  two  immortal 
souls  was  far  more  picturesque  than  the  Schopenhauer- 
Nietzschean  idea  that  it  was  a mere  symptom  of  the 
primary  will  to  live. 

In  1876  Nietzsche  began  to  realize  that  he  had  left 
Wagner  far  behind  and  that  thereafter  he  could  expect  no 
support  from  the  composer.  They  had  not  met  since 
1874,  but  Nietzsche  went  to  Bayreuth  for  the  first  opera 
season.  A single  conversation  convinced  him  that  his 
doubts  were  well-founded  — that  Wagner  was  a mere 
dionysian  of  the  chair  and  had  no  intention  of  pushing 
the  ideas  they  had  discussed  to  their  bitter  and  revolution- 
ary conclusion.  Most  other  men  would  have  seen  in  this 


248 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


nothing  more  than  an  evidence  of  a common-sense  decision 
to  sacrifice  the  whole  truth  for  half  the  truth,  but  Nietzsche 
was  a rabid  hater  of  compromise.  To  make  terms  with  the 
philistines  seemed  to  him  to  be  even  worse  than  joining 
their  ranks.  He  saw  in  Wagner  only  a traitor  who  knew 
the  truth  and  yet  denied  it. 

Nietzsche  was  so  much  disgusted  that  he  left  Bayreuth 
and  set  out  upon  a walking  tour,  but  before  the  end  of  the 
season  he  returned  and  heard  some  of  the  operas.  But 
he  was  no  longer  a Wagnerian  and  the  music  of  the 
“ Ring  ” did  not  delight  him.  It  was  impossible,  indeed, 
for  him  to  separate  the  music  from  the  philosophy  set 
forth  in  the  librettos.  He  believed,  with  Wagner,  that 
the  two  were  indissolubly  welded,  and  so,  after  awhile, 
he  came  to  condemn  the  whole  fabric  — harmonies  and 
melodies  as  well  as  heroes  and  dramatic  situations. 

When  Wagner  passed  out  of  his  life  Nietzsche  sought 
to  cure  his  loneliness  by  hard  work  and  “ Menschliches 
allzu  Menschliches  ” was  the  result.  He  sent  a copy  of 
the  first  volume  to  Wagner  and  on  the  way  it  crossed  a 
copy  of  “ Parsifal”  In  this  circumstance  is  well  exhibited 
the  width  of  the  breach  between  the  two  men.  To  Wagner 
“ Menschliches  allzu  Menschliches  ” seemed  impossibly 
and  insanely  radical ; to  Nietzsche  “ Parsifal,”  with  all 
its  exaltation  of  ritualism,  was  unspeakable.  Neither 
deigned  to  write  to  the  other,  but  we  have  it  from  reliable 
testimony  that  Wagner  was  disgusted  and  Nietzsche’s 
sister  tells  us  how  much  the  music-drama  of  the  grail 
enraged  him. 

A German,  when  indignation  seizes  him,  rises  straight- 
way to  make  a loud  and  vociferous  protest.  And  so, 


NIETZSCHE  VS.  WAGNER 


249 


although  Nietzsche  retained,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  a 
pleasant  memory  of  the  happy  days  he  spent  at  Tribschen 
and  almost  his  last  words  voiced  his  loyal  love  for  Wagner 
the  man,  he  conceived  it  to  be  his  sacred  duty  to  combat 
what  he  regarded  as  the  treason  of  Wagner  the  philosopher. 
This  notion  was  doubtlessly  strengthened  by  his  belief 
that  he  himself  had  done  much  to  launch  Wagner’s  bark. 
He  had  praised,  and  now  it  was  his  duty  to  blame.  He 
had  been  enthusiastic  at  the  first  task,  and  he  determined 
to  be  pitiless  at  the  second. 

But  he  hesitated  for  ten  years,  because,  as  has  been 
said,  he  could  not  kill  his  affection  for  Wagner,  the  man. 
It  takes  courage  to  wound  one’s  nearest  and  dearest,  and 
Nietzsche,  for  all  his  lack  of  sentiment,  was  still  no  more 
than  human.  In  the  end,  however,  he  brought  himself 
to  the  heroic  surgery  that  confronted  him,  and  the  re- 
sult was  “ Der  Fall  Wagner .”  In  this  book  all  friend- 
ship and  pleasant  memories  were  put  aside.  Wagner 
was  his  friend  of  old?  Very  well:  that  was  a reason 
for  him  to  be  all  the  more  exact  and  all  the  more 
unpitying. 

“ What  does  a philosopher  firstly  and  lastly  require  of 
himself?”  he  asks.  “To  overcome  his  age  in  himself; 
to  become  timeless ! With  what,  then,  has  he  to  fight  his 
hardest  fight?  With  those  characteristics  and  ideas 
which  most  plainly  stamp  him  as  the  child  of  his  age.” 
Herein  we  perceive  Nietzsche’s  fundamental  error. 
Deceived  by  Wagner’s  enthusiasm  for  Schopenhauer  and 
his  early,  amateurish  dabbling  in  philosophy,  he  regarded 
the  composer  as  a philosopher.  But  Wagner,  of  course, 
was  first  of  all  an  artist,  and  it  is  the  function  of  an  artist, 


250 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


not  to  reform  humanity,  but  to  depict  it  as  he  sees  it,  or 
as  his  age  sees  it  — • fallacies,  delusions  and  all.  George 
Bernard  Shaw,  in  his  famous  criticism  of  Shakespeare, 
shows  us  how  the  Bard  of  Avon  made  just  such  a com- 
promise with  the  prevailing  opinion  of  his  time.  Shake- 
speare, he  says,  was  too  intelligent  a man  to  regard 
Rosalind  as  a plausible  woman,  but  the  theatre-goers  of 
his  day  so  regarded  her  and  he  drew  her  to  their  taste.1 
An  artist  who  failed  to  make  such  a concession  to  con- 
vention would  be  an  artist  without  an  audience.  Wagner 
was  no  Christian,  but  he  knew  that  the  quest  of  the  holy 
grail  was  an  idea  which  made  a powerful  appeal  to  nine- 
tenths  of  civilized  humanity,  and  so  he  turned  it  into  a 
drama.  This  was  not  conscious  lack  of  sincerity,  but 
merely  a manifestation  of  the  sub-conscious  artistic  feeling 
for  effectiveness. 3 

Therefore,  it  is  plain  that  Nietzsche’s  whole  case 
against  Wagner  is  based  upon  a fallacy  and  that,  in  con- 
sequence, it  is  not  to  be  taken  too  seriously.  It  is  true 
enough  that  his  book  contains  some  remarkably  acute 
and  searching  observations  upon  art,  and  that,  granting 
his  premises,  his  general  conclusions  would  be  correct, 
but  we  are  by  no  means  granting  his  premises.  Wagner 
may  have  been  a traitor  to  his  philosophy,  but  if  he  had 
remained  loyal  to  it,  his  art  would  have  been  impossible. 
And  in  view  of  the  sublime  beauty  of  that  art  we  may  well 
pardon  him  for  not  keeping  the  faith. 

* See  “ George  Bernard  Shaw  : His  Plays ; ” page  102  et  seq.,  Boston, 
I9°S- 

*“  Wagner’s  creative  instinct  gave  the  lie  to  his  theoretical  system:” 
R.  A.  Streatfield,  “Modern  Music  and  Musicians,”  p.  272;  New  York, 
1906. 


NIETZSCHE  VS.  WAGNER 


251 


“ Der  Fall  Wagner  ” caused  a horde  of  stupid  critics 
to  maintain  that  Nietzsche,  and  not  Wagner,  was  the 
apostate,  and  that  the  mad  philosopher  had  begun  to 
argue  against  himself.  As  an  answer  to  this  ridiculous 
charge,  Nietzsche  published  a little  book  called  “ Nietzsche 
contra  Wagner.”  It  was  made  up  entirely  of  passages 
from  his  earlier  books  and  these  proved  conclusively  that, 
ever  since  his  initial  divergence  from  Schopenhauer’s 
conclusions,  he  had  hoed  a straight  row.  He  was  a 
dionysian  in  “ Die  Geburt  der  Tragodie  ” and  he  was 
a dionysian  still  in  “ Also  Sprach  Zarathustra.” 


I 


NIETZSCHE  THE  PROPHET 


I 


Nietzsche’s  origins 

The  construction  of  philosophical  family  trees  for 
Nietzsche  has  ever  been  one  of  the  favorite  pastimes  of 
his  critics  and  interpreters.  Thus  Dr.  Oscar  Levy,  editor 
of  the  English  translation  of  his  works,  makes  him  the 
heir  of  Goethe  and  Stendhal,  and  the  culminating  figure 
of  the  “ Second  Renaissance  ” launched  by  the  latter, 
who  was  “ the  first  man  to  cry  halt  to  the  Kantian  phi- 
losophy which  had  flooded  all  Europe.1  Dr.  M.  A. 
Miigge  agrees  with  this  genealogy  so  far  as  it  goes,  but 
points  out  that  Nietzsche  was  also  the  intellectual  de- 
scendant of  certain  pre-Socratic  Greeks,  particularly 
Heracleitus,  and  of  Spinoza  and  Stirner.2  Alfred  Fouil- 
lee,  the  Frenchman,  is  another  who  gives  him  Greek 
blood,  but  in  seeking  his  later  forebears  Fouillee  passes 
over  the  four  named  by  Levy  and  Mtigge  and  puts 
Jlobbes,  Schopenhauer,  Darwin,  Rousseau  and  Diderot 
in  place  of  them.3  Again,  Thomas  Common  says  that 
“ perhaps  Nietzsche  is  most  indebted  to  Chamfort  and 
Schopenhauer,”  but  also  allows  a considerable  influence 
toJHobbes,  and  endeavors  to  show  how  Nietzsche  car- 

1 “ The  Revival  of  Aristocracy,”  London,  1906,  pp.  14-59. 

2 “ Friedrich  Nietzsche:  His  Life  and  Work,”  New  York,  1909,  pp. 
31S-320. 

3 “ Nietzsche  et  Vlmmoralisme ,”  Paris,  1902,  p.  294. 

255 


256 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


ried  on,  consciously  and  unconsciously,  certain  ideas 
originating  with  Darwin  and  developed  by  Huxley, 
Spencer  and  the  other  evolutionists.1  Dr.  Alexander 
Tille  has  written  a whole  volume  upon  this  latter  rela- 
tionship.2 Finally,  Paul  Elmer  More,  the  American, 
taking  the  cue  from  Fouillee,  finds  the  germs  of  many 
of  Nietzsche’s  doctrines  in  Hobbes,  and  then  proceeds 
to  a somewhat  elaborate  discussion  of  the  mutations  of 
ethical  theory  during  the  past  two  centuries,  showing 
how  Hume  superimposed  the  idea  of  sympathy  as  a 
motive  upon  Hobbes’  idea  of  self-interest,  and  how  this 
sympathy  theory  prevailed  over  that  of  self-interest, 
and  degenerated  into  sentimentalism,  and  so  opened  the 
way  for  Socialism  and  other  such  delusions,  and  how 
Nietzsche  instituted  a sort  of  Hobbesian  revival.3  Many 
more  speculations  of  that  sort,  some  of  them  very  in- 
genious and  some  merely  ingenuous,  might  be  rehearsed. 
By  one  critic  or  another  Nietzsche  has  been  accused  of 
more  or  less  frank  borrowings  from  Xenophanes,  De- 
mocritus, Pythagoras,  Callicles,  Parmenides,  Arcelaus, 
Empedocles,  Pyrrho,  Hegesippus,  the  Eleatic  Zeno, 
Machiavelli,  Comte,  Montaigne,  Mandeville,  La  Bru- 
yere,  Fontenelle,  Voltaire,  Kant,  La  Rochefoucauld, 
Helvetius,  Adam  Smith,  Malthus,  Butler,  Blake,  Prou- 
dhon, Paul  Ree,  Flaubert,  Taine,  Gobineau,  Renan,  and 
even  from  Karl  Marx ! — a long  catalogue  of  meaning- 
less names,  an  exhaustive  roster  of  pathfinders  and  pro- 

1 “ Nietzsche  as  Critic,  Philosopher,  Poet  and  Prophet,”  London, 

1901,  pp.  xi-xxiii. 

3 “ Von  Darwin  bis  Nietzsche ,”  Leipsic,  1895. 

3“  Nietzsche,”  Boston,  1912,  pp.  18-45. 


NIETZSCHE’S  ORIGINS  257 

testants.  A Frenchman,  Jules  de  Gaultier,  has  devoted 
a whole  book  to  the  fascinating  subject.1 

But  if  we  turn  from  this  laborious  and  often  irrele- 
vant search  for  common  ideas  and  parallel  passages  to 
the  actual  facts  of  Nietzsche’s  intellectual  development, 
we  shall  find,  perhaps,  that  his  ancestry  ran  in  two 
streams,  the  one  coming  down  from  the  Greeks  whom 
he  studied  as  school-boy  and  undergraduate,  and  the 
other  having  its  source  in  Schopenhauer,  the  great  dis- 
covery of  his  early  manhood  and  the  most  powerful 
single  influence  of  his  fife.  No  need  to  argue  the  essen- 
tially Greek  color  of  Nietzsche’s  apprentice  thinking. 
It  was,  indeed,  his  interest  in  Greek  literature  and  life 
that  made  him  a philologist  by  profession,  and  the  same 
interest  that  converted  him  from  a philologist  into  a 
philosopher.  The  foundation  of  his  system  was  laid 
when  he  arrived  at  his  conception  of  the  conflict  between 
the  Greek  gods  Apollo  and  Dionysus,  and  all  that  fol- 
lowed belonged  naturally  to  the  working  out  of  that 
idea.  But  what  he  got  from  the  Greeks  of  his  early 
adoration  was  more  than  a single  idea  and  more  than 
the  body  of  miscellaneous  ideas  listed  by  the  commenta- 
tors: it  was  the  Greek  outlook,  the  Greek  spirit,  the 
Greek  attitude  toward  God  and  man.  In  brief,  he  ceased 
to  be  a German  pastor’s  son,  brought  up  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,  and  became  a citizen  of  those  gorgeous  and  en- 
chanted isles,  much  as  Shelley  had  before  him.  The 
sentimentality  of  Christianity  dropped  from  him  like 
an  old  garment;  he  stood  forth,  as  it  were,  bare  and  un- 
ashamed, a pagan  in  the  springtime  of  the  world,  a ja- 
1 “ De  Kant  d Nietzsche Paris,  1900. 


258 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


sager.  More  than  the  reading  of  books,  of  course,  was 
needed  to  work  that  transformation  — the  blood  that 
leaped  had  to  be  blood  capable  of  leaping  — but  it  was 
out  of  books  that  the  stimulus  came,  and  the  feeling  of 
surety,  and  the  beginnings  of  a workable  philosophy  of 
life.  It  is  not  a German  that  speaks  in  “ The  Anti- 
christ,” nor  even  the  Polish  noble  that  Nietzsche  liked 
to  think  himself,  but  a Greek  of  the  brave  days  before 
Socrates,  a spokesman  of  Hellenic  innocence  and  youth. 

No  doubt  it  was  the  unmistakably  Greek  note  in 
Schopenhauer  — the  delivery  of  instinct,  so  long  con- 
demned to  the  ethical  dungeons  — that  engendered 
Nietzsche’s  first  wild  enthusiasm  for  the  Frankfort  sage. 
The  atmosphere  of  Leipsic  in  1865  was  heavy  with 
moral  vapors,  and  the  daring  dissent  of  Schopenhauer 
must  have  seemed  to  blow  through  it  like  a sharp  wind 
from  the  sea.  And  Nietzsche,  being  young  and  passion- 
ate, was  carried  away  by  the  ecstasy  of  discovery,  and 
so  accepted  the  whole  Schopenhauerean  philosophy  with- 
out examining  it  too  critically  — the  bitter  with  the 
sweet,  its  pessimism  no  less  than  its  rebellion.  He,  too, 
had  to  go  through  the  green-sickness  of  youth,  particu- 
larly of  German  youth.  The  Greek  was  yet  but  half 
way  from  Naumburg  to  Attica,  and  he  now  stopped  a 
moment  to  look  backward.  “ Every  line,”  he  tells  us 
somewhere,  “ cried  out  renunciation,  denial,  resignation. 
. . . Evidences  of  this  sudden  change  are  still  to  be 
found  in  the  restless  melancholy  of  the  leaves  of  my 
diary  at  that  period,  with  all  their  useless  self-reproach 
and  their  desperate  gazing  upward  for  recovery  and  for 
the  transformation  of  the  whole  spirit  of  mankind.  By 


NIETZSCHE’S  ORIGINS  259 

drawing  all  my  qualities  and  my  aspirations  before  the 
forum  of  gloomy  self-contempt  I became  bitter,  unjust 
and  unbridled  in  my  hatred  of  myself.  I even  practised 
bodily  penance.  For  instance,  I forced  myself  for  a 
fortnight  at  a stretch  to  go  to  bed  at  two  o’clock  in  the 
morning  and  to  rise  punctually  at  six.”  But  not  for 
long.  The  fortnight  of  self-accusing  and  hair-shirts  was 
soon  over.  The  green-sickness  vanished.1  The  Greek 
emerged  anew,  more  Hellenic  than  ever.  And  so,  al- 
most from  the  start,  Nietzsche  rejected  quite  as  much  of 
Schopenhauer  as  he  accepted.  The  Schopenhauerean 
premise  entered  into  his  system  — the  will  to  live  was 
destined  to  become  the  father,  in  a few  years,  of  the  will 
to  power  — but  the  Schopenhauerean  conclusion  held 
him  no  longer  than  it  took  him  to  inspect  it  calmly. 
Thus  he  gained  doubly  — first,  by  the  acquisition  of  a 
definite  theory  of  human  conduct,  one  giving  clarity  to 
his  own  vague  feelings,  and  secondly,  by  the  reaction 
against  an  abject  theory  of  human  destiny,  the  very 
antithesis  of  that  which  rose  within  him. 

And  yet,  for  all  his  dissent,  for  all  his  instinctive  re- 
volt against  the  resignationism  which  overwhelmed  him 
for  an  hour,  Nietzsche  nevertheless  carried  away  with 
him,  and  kept  throughout  his  life,  some  touch  of  Scho- 
penhauer’s distrust  of  the  search  for  happiness.  Nine 
years  after  his  great  discovery  we  find  him  quoting  and 
approving  his  teacher’s  words:  “ A happy  fife  is  impos- 
sible; the  highest  thing  that  man  can  aspire  to  is  a 

1 Nietzsche  himself,  in  after  years,  viewed  this  attack  humorously, 
and  was  wont  to  say  that  it  was  caused,  not  by  Schopenhauer  alone,  but 
also  (and  chiefly)  by  the  bad  cooking  of  Leipsic.  See  “ Ecce  Homo,"  II,  i. 


260 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


heroic  life.”  And  still  later  we  find  him  thundering 
against  “ the  green-grazing  happiness  of  the  herd.” 
What  is  more,  he  gave  his  assent  later  on,  though  always 
more  by  fascination  than  by  conviction,  to  the  doctrine 
of  eternal  recurrence,  the  most  hopeless  idea,  perhaps, 
ever  formulated  by  man.  But  in  all  this  a certain  dis- 
tinction is  to  be  noted:  Schopenhauer,  despairing  of  the 
happy  life,  renounced  even  the  heroic  life,  but  Niet- 
zsche never  did  anything  of  the  sort.  On  the  contrary, 
his  whole  philosophy  is  a protest  against  that  very  de- 
spair. The  heroic  life  may  not  bring  happiness,  and  it 
may  even  fail  to  bring  good,  but  at  all  events  it  will 
shine  gloriously  in  the  light  of  its  own  heroism.  In 
brief,  high  endeavor  is  an  end  in  itself  — nay,  the  no- 
blest of  all  ends.  The  higher  man  does  not  work  for  a 
wage,  not  even  for  the  wage  of  bliss:  his  reward  is  in  the 
struggle,  the  danger,  the  aspiration.  As  for  the  happiness 
born  of  peace  and  love,  of  prosperity  and  tranquillity, 
that  is  for  “ shopkeepers,  women,  Englishmen  and 
cows.”  The  man  who  seeks  it  thereby  confesses  his  in- 
capacity for  the  loftier  joys  and  hazards  of  the  free 
spirit,  and  the  man  who  wails  because  he  cannot  find  it 
thereby  confesses  his  unfitness  to  live  in  the  world. 
“ My  formula  for  greatness,”  said  Nietzsche  toward  the 
end  of  his  life,  “ is  amor  jati  . . . not  only  to  bear  up 
under  necessity,  but  to  love  it.”  Thus,  borrowing  Scho- 
penhauer’s pessimism,  he  turned  it,  in  the  end,  into  a 
defiant  and  irreconcilable  optimism  — not  the  slave 
optimism  of  hope,  with  its  vain  courting  of  gods,  but  the 
master  optimism  of  courage. 

So  much  for  the  larger  of  the  direct  influences  upon 


NIETZSCHE’S  ORIGINS 


261 


Nietzsche’s  thinking.  Scarcely  less  was  the  influence 
of  that  great  revolution  in  man’s  view  of  man,  that 
genuine  “ transvaluation  of  all  values,”  set  in  motion 
by  the  publication  of  Charles  Darwin’s  “ The  Origin  of 
Species,”  in  1859.  In  the  chapter  on  Christianity  I have 
sketched  briefly  the  part  that  Nietzsche  played  in  the 
matter,  and  have  shown  how  it  rested  squarely  upon  the 
parts  played  by  those  who  went  before  him.  He  himself 
was  fond  of  attacking  Darwin,  whom  he  disliked  as  he 
disliked  all  Englishmen,  and  of  denying  that  he  had 
gotten  anything  of  value  out  of  Darwin’s  work,  but  it  is’ 
not  well  to  take  such  denunciations  and  denials  too  seri- 
ously. Like  Ibsen,  Nietzsche  was  often  an  unreliable 
witness  as  to  his  own  intellectual  obligations.  So  long  as 
he  dealt  with  ideas  his  thinking  was  frank  and  clear,  but 
when  he  turned  to  the  human  beings  behind  them,  and 
particularly  when  he  discussed  those  who  had  presumed 
to  approach  the  problems  he  undertook  to  solve  himself, 
his  incredible  intolerance,  jealousy,  spitefulness  and 
egomania,  and  his  savage  lust  for  bitter,  useless  and  un- 
merciful strife,  combined  to  make  his  statements  du- 
bious, and  sometimes  even  absurd.  Thus  with  his  sneers 
at  Darwin  and  the  other  evolutionists,  especially  Spen- 
cer. If  he  did  not  actually  follow  them,  then  he  at  least 
walked  side  by  side  with  them,  and  every  time  they 
cleared  another  bit  of  the  path  he  profited  by  it  too. 
One  thing,  at  all  events,  they  gave  to  the  world  that 
entered  into  Nietzsche’s  final  philosophy,  and  without 
which  it  would  have  stopped  short  of  its  ultimate  devel- 
opment, and  that  was  the  conception  of  man  as  a mam- 
mal. Their  great  service  to  human  knowledge  was  pre- 


262 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


cisely  this.  They  found  man  a loiterer  at  the  gates  of 
heaven,  a courtier  in  the  ante-chambers  of  gods.  They 
brought  him  back  to  earth  and  bade  him  help  him- 
self. 

Meanwhile,  the  reader  who  cares  to  go  into  the  matter 
further  will  find  Nietzsche  elbowing  other  sages  in  a 
multitude  of  places.  He  himself  has  testified  to  his 
debt  to  Stendhal  (Marie  Henri  Beyle),  that  great  apolo- 
gist for  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  exponent  of  the  Na- 
poleonic philosophy.  “ Stendhal,”  he  says,  “ was  one 
of  the  happiest  accidents  of  my  life.  . . . He  is  quite 
priceless,  with  his  penetrating  psychologist’s  eye  and  his 
grip  upon  facts,  recalling  that  of  the  greatest  of  all 
masters  of  facts  (ex  ungue  Napoleon  — •) ; and  last,  but  not 
least,  as  an  honest  atheist  — one  of  a species  rare  and 
hard  to  find  in  France.  . . . Maybe  I myself  am  jealous 
of  Stendhal?  He  took  from  me  the  best  of  atheistic 
jokes,  that  I might  best  have  made:  ‘ the  only  excuse 
for  God  is  that  He  doesn’t  exist.’  ” 1 Of  his  debt  to  Max 
Stirner  the  evidence  is  less  clear,  but  it  has  been  fre- 
quently alleged,  and,  as  Dr.  Miigge  says,  “ quite  a liter- 
ature has  grown  up  around  the  question.”  Stirner’s 
chief  work,  “ Der  Einzige  und  sein  Eigentum,”  2 was  first 
published  in  1844,  the  year  of  Nietzsche’s  birth,  and  in 
its  strong  plea  for  the  emancipation  of  the  individual 
there  are  many  ideas  and  even  phrases  that  were  later 
voiced  by  Nietzsche.  Dr.  Miigge  quotes  a few  of  them: 
“ What  is  good  and  what  is  evil?  I myself  am  my  own 

1 “ Ecce  Homo,'”  II,  3. 

2 Eng.  tr.  by  Steven  T.  Byington,  “ The  Ego  and  His  Own,”  New 
York,  1907. 


NIETZSCHE’S  ORIGINS 


263 


rule,  and  I am  neither  good  nor  evil.  Neither  word 
means  anything  to  me.  . . . Between  the  two  vicissi- 
tudes of  victory  and  defeat  swings  the  fate  of  the  struggle 
— master  or  slave!  . . . Egoism,  not  love,  must  de- 
cide.” Others  will  greet  the  reader  of  Stirner’s  book: 
“ As  long  as  you  believe  in  the  truth,  you  do  not  believe 
in  yourself;  you  are  a servant,  a religious  man.  You 
alone  are  the  truth.  . . . Whether  what  I think  and  do 
is  Christian,  what  do  I care?  Whether  it  is  human, 
liberal,  humane,  whether  unhuman,  illiberal,  unhumane, 
what  do  I ask  about  that?  If  only  it  accomplishes  what 
I want,  if  only  I satisfy  myself  in  it,  then  overlay  it  with 
predicates  if  you  will:  it  is  all  one  to  me.  ...”  But, 
as  Dr.  J.  L.  Walker  well  says,  in  his  introduction  to  Mr. 
Byington’s  English  translation,  there  is  a considerable 
gulf  between  Stirner  and  Nietzsche,  even  here.  The 
former’s  plea  is  for  absolute  liberty  for  all  men,  great 
and  small.  The  latter  is  for  liberty  only  in  the  higher 
castes:  the  chandala  he  would  keep  in  chains.  There- 
fore, if  Nietzsche  actually  got  anything  from  Stirner, 
it  certainly  did  not  enter  unchanged  into  the  ultimate 
structure  of  his  system. 

The  other  attempts  to  convict  him  of  appropriating 
ideas  come  to  little  more.  Dr.  Miigge,  for  example,  quotes 
these  pre-Nietzschean  passages  from  Heracleitus:  “ War 
is  universal  and  right,  and  by  strife  all  things  arise  and 
are  made  use  of  . . . God  and  evil  are  the  same.  . . . 
To  me,  one  is  worth  ten  thousand,  if  he  be  the  best.”  And 
Mr.  More  quotes  this  from  Hobbes : “ In  the  first  place, 
I put  forth,  for  a general  inclination  of  all  mankind,  a 
perpetual  and  restless  desire  of  power  after  power,  that 


264 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


ceaseth  only  with  death  ” — to  which  the  reader  may 
add,  “ Whatsoever  is  the  object  of  any  man’s  appetite 
or  desire,  that  is  it  which  he  for  his  part  calleth  good 
. . . for  these  words  of  good,  evil  and  contemptible  are 
ever  used  with  relation  to  the  person  that  useth  them; 
there  being  nothing  simply  and  absolutely  so;  nor  any 
common  rule  of  good  and  evil,  to  be  taken  for  the  nature 
of  objects  themselves.”  1 But  all  these  passages  prove 
no  more  than  that  men  of  past  ages  saw  the  mutability 
of  criteria,  and  their  origin  in  human  aspiration  and 
striving.  Not  only  Heracleitus,  but  many  other  Greeks, 
voiced  that  ethical  scepticism.  It  was  for  many  years, 
indeed,  one  of  the  dominant  influences  in  Greek  phi- 
losophy, and  so,  if  Nietzsche  is  accused  of  borrowing  it, 
that  is  no  more  than  saying  what  I have  already  said: 
that  he  ate  Greek  grapes  in  his  youth  and  became,  to 
all  intellectual  intents  and  purposes,  a Greek  himself. 
A man  must  needs  have  a point  of  view,  a manner  of 
approach  to  life,  and  that  point  of  view  is  no  less  au- 
thentic when  he  reaches  it  through  his  reading  and  by 
the  exercise  of  a certain  degree  of  free  choice  than  when 
he  accepts  it  unthinkingly  from  the  folk  about  him.  The 
service  of  Heracleitus  and  the  other  Greeks  to  Niet- 
zsche was  not  that  they  gave  him  his  philosophy,  but 
that  they  made  him  a philosopher.  It  was  the  ques- 
tions they  asked  rather  than  the  answers  they  made  that 
interested  and  stimulated  him,  and  if,  at  times,  he  an- 
swered much  as  they  had  done,  that  was  only  proof  of 
his  genuine  kinship  with  them. 

On  the  artistic,  as  opposed  to  the  analytical  side, 
1 The  Leviathan,  I,  vi;  London,  1651. 


NIETZSCHE’S  ORIGINS 


265 


Nietzsche’s  most  influential  teacher,  perhaps,  was 
Goethe,  the  noblest  intellectual  figure  of  modern  Ger- 
many, the  common  stammvater  of  all  the  warring  schools 
of  today  — in  Nietzsche’s  own  phrase,  “ not  only  a good 
and  great  man,  but  a culture  itself.”  His  writings  are 
full  of  praises  of  his  hero,  whom  he  began  to  read  as  a 
boy  of  eight  or  ten  years.  His  grandmother,  Frau  Erd- 
muthe  Nietzsche,  was  a sister  to  Dr.  Krause,  professor 
of  divinity  at  Weimar  in  Goethe’s  day,  and  she  lived 
in  the  town  while  the  poet  held  his  court  there,  and  un- 
doubtedly came  into  contact  with  him.  Her  mother, 
Frau  Pastor  Krause,  was  probably  the  Muthgen  of 
Goethe’s  diary.  But  despite  all  this,  she  thought  that 
“ Faust  ” and  “ Elective  Affinities  ” were  “ not  fit  for 
little  boys  ” and  so  it  remained  for  Judge  Pindar,  the 
father  of  one  of  young  Nietzsche’s  Naumburg  playmates, 
to  conduct  the  initiation.  Thirty  years  afterward, 
Nietzsche  gratefully  acknowledged  his  debt  to  Herr 
Pindar,  and  his  vastly  greater  debt  to  Goethe  — “a 
thoroughgoing  realist  in  the  midst  of  an  unreal  age.  . . . 
He  did  not  sever  himself  from  life,  but  entered  into  it. 
Undaunted,  he  took  as  much  as  possible  to  himself.  . . . 
What  he  sought  was  totality .”  2 

Nietzsche  was  also  an  extravagant  admirer  of  Hein- 
rich Heine,  and  tried  to  imitate  that  poet’s  “ sweet  and 
passionate  music.”  “ People  will  say  some  day,”  he 
declared,  “ that  Heine  and  I were  the  greatest  artists, 
by  far,  that  ever  wrote  in  German,  and  that  we  left  the 

1 Frau  Forster-Nietzsche:  “ The  Life  of  Nietzsche  ” (Eng.  tr.),  Vol.  I, 
P-  3i- 

2 “ Gotzenddmmerung,”  IX,  49. 


266 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


best  any  mere  German  1 could  do  an  incalculable  dis- 
tance behind  us.”  2 Another  poet  he  greatly  revered 
was  Friedrich  Holderlin,  a South  German  rhapsodist  of 
the  Goethe-Schiller  period,  who  wrote  odes  in  free 
rhythms  and  philosophical  novels  in  gorgeous  prose, 
and  died  the  year  before  Nietzsche  was  born,  after  forty 
years  of  insanity.  Karl  Joel,3  Dr.  Miigge  and  other 
critics  have  sought  to  connect  Nietzsche,  through  Hol- 
derlin, with  the  romantic  movement  in  Germany,  but 
the  truth  is  that  both  Nietzsche  and  Holderlin,  if  they 
were  romantics  at  all,  were  of  the  Greek  school  rather 
than  the  German.  Certainly,  nothing  could  be  further 
from  genuine  German  romanticism,  with  its  sentimen- 
tality, its  begging  of  questions  and  its  booming  patriot- 
ism, than  the  gospel  of  the  superman.  What  Nietzsche 
undoubtedly  got  from  the  romantics  was  a feeling  of 
ease  in  the  German  language,  a disregard  for  the  arti- 
ficial bonds  of  the  schools,  a sense  of  hospitality  to  the 
gipsy  phrase.  In  brief,  they  taught  him  how  to  write. 
But  they  certainly  did  not  teach  him  what  to  write. 

Even  so,  it  is  probable  that  he  was  as  much  influenced 
by  certain  Frenchmen  as  he  ever  was  by  Germans  — 
particularly  by  Montaigne,  La  Bruyere,  La  Rochefou- 
cauld, Fontenelle,  Vauvenarges  and  Chamfort,  his  con- 
stant companions  on  his  wanderings.  He  borrowed 
from  them,  not  only  the  somewhat  obvious  device  of 
putting  his  argument  into  the  form  of  apothegms  and 

1 Heine  was  a Jew  — and  Nietzsche,  as  we  know,  liked  to  think  him- 
self a Pole. 

2 “ Ecce  Homo”  II,  4. 

3 “ Nietzsche  und  die  Romantik,”  Jena,  1905. 


NIETZSCHE’S  ORIGINS 


267 


epigrams,  but  also  their  conception  of  the  dialectic  as 
one  of  the  fine  arts  — in  other  words,  their  striving 
after  style.  “It  is  to  a small  number  of  French  au- 
thors,” he  once  said,  “ that  I return  again  and  again. 
I believe  only  in  French  culture,  and  regard  all  that  is 
called  culture  elsewhere  in  Europe,  especially  in  Ger- 
many, as  mere  misunderstanding.  . . . The  few  per- 
sons of  higher  culture  that  I have  met  in  Germany  have 
had  French  training  — above  all,  Frau  Cosima  Wagner, 
by  long  odds  the  best  authority  on  questions  of  taste  I 
ever  heard  of.”  1 This  preference  carried  him  so  far, 
indeed,  that  he  usually  wrote  more  like  a Frenchman 
than  like  a German,  toying  with  words,  experimenting 
with  their  combinations,  matching  them  as  carefully 
as  pearls  for  a necklace.  “ Nietzsche,”  says  one  critic,2 
“ whether  for  good  or  evil,  introduced  Romance  (not 
romantic!)  qualities  of  terseness  and  clearness  into  Ger- 
man prose;  it  was  his  endeavor  to  free  it  from  those  ele- 
ments which  he  described  as  deutsch  und  schwer.”  (Ger- 
man and  heavy.) 

For  the  rest,  he  denounced  Klopstock,  Herder,  Wie- 
land,  Lessing  and  Schiller,  the  remaining  gods  in  Ger- 
many’s literary  valhalla,  even  more  bitterly  than  he  de- 
nouncecrK-ant-and  Hegel,  the  giants  of  orthodox  German 
philosophy. 

■J~*~Ecce  Homo,"  II,  3. 

2 J.  G.  Robertson:  “ A History  of  German  Literature,”  Edinburgh, 
1902,  pp.  611-615. 


II 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS 

Let  us  set  aside  at  the  start  that  great  host  of  critics 
whose  chief  objection  to  Nietzsche  is  that  he  is  blasphe- 
mous, that  his  philosophy  and  his  manner  outrage  the 
piety  and  prudery  of  the  world.  Of  such  sort  are  the 
pale  parsons  who  arise  in  suburban  pulpits  to  dispose  of 
him  in  the  half  hour  between  the  first  and  second  lessons, 
as  their  predecessors  of  the  70’s  and  8o’s  disposed  of 
Darwin,  Huxley  and  Spencer.  Let  them  read  their  in- 
dictments and  bring  in  their  verdicts  and  pronounce 
their  bitter  sentences!  The  student  of  Nietzsche  must 
perceive  at  once  the  irrelevance  of  that  sort  of  criticism. 
It  was  the  deliberate  effort  of  the  philosopher,  from  the 
very  start  of  what  he  calls  his  tunnelling  period,  to  pro- 
voke and  deserve  the  accusation  of  sacrilege.  In  fra- 
ming his  accusations  against  Christian  morality  he  tried 
to  make  them,  not  only  persuasive  and  just,  but  also  as 
offensive  as  possible.  No  man  ever  had  more  belief  in 
the  propagandist  value  of  a succes  de  scandale.  He  tried 
his  best  to  shock  the  guardians  of  the  sacred  vessels,  to 
force  upon  them  the  burdens  of  an  active  defense,  to 
bring  them  out  into  the  open,  to  attract  attention  to 
the  combat  by  accentuating  its  mere  fuming  and  fury. 
If  he  succeeded  in  the  effort,  if  he  really  outraged  Chris- 

268 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  269 


tendom,  then  it  is  certainly  absurd  to  bring  forward  that 
deliberate  achievement  as  an  exhibit  against  itself. 

The  more  pertinent  and  plausible  criticisms  of  Niet- 
zsche, launched  against  him  in  Europe  and  America  by 
many  industrious  foes,  may  be  reduced  for  convenience 
to  five  fundamental  propositions,  to  wit: 


(a)  He  was  a decadent  and  a lunatic,  and  in  consequence 
his  philosophy  is  not  worthy  of  attention. 

( b ) His  writings  are  chaotic  and  contradictory  and  it  is 
impossible  to  find  in  them  any  connected  philosophical  sys- 
tem. 

(c)  His  argument  that  self-sacrifice  costs  more  than  it 
yields,  and  that  it  thus  reduces  the  average  fitness  of  a race 
practising  it,  is  contradicted  by  human  experience. 

(i d ) The  scheme  of  things  proposed  by  him  is  opposed  by 
ideas  inherent  in  all  civilized  men. 

(e)  Even  admitting  that  his  criticism  of  Christian  moral- 
ity is  well-founded,  he  offers  nothing  in  place  of  it  that  would 
work  as  well. 


It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  linger  over  the  first  and 
second  of  these  propositions.  The  first  has  been  de- 
fended most  speciously  by  Max  Nordau,  in  “ Degen- 
eration,” a book  which  made  as  much  noise,  when  it  was 
first  published  in  1893,  as  any  °f  Nietzsche’s  own.  Nor- 
dau’s  argument  is  based  upon  a theory  of  degeneration 
borrowed  quite  frankly  from  Cesare  Lombroso,  an 
Italian  quasi-scientist  whose  modest  contributions  to 
psychiatry  were  offset  by  many  volumes  of  rubbish 
about  spooks,  table-tapping,  mental  telepathy,  spirit 
photography  and  the  alleged  stigmata  of  criminals  and 


270 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


men  of  genius.  Degeneracy  and  decadence  were  terms 
that  filled  the  public  imagination  in  the  8o’s  and  90’s, 
and  even  Nietzsche  himself  seemed  to  think,  at  times, 
that  they  had  definite  meanings  and  that  his  own  type 
of  mind  was  degenerate.  As  Nordau  defines  degeneracy 
it  is  “ a morbid  deviation  from  the  original  type  ” — 
i.  e.,  from  the  physical  and  mental  norm  of  the  species 
— and  he  lays  stress  upon  the  fact  that  by  “ morbid  ” 
he  means  “ infirm  ” or  “ incapable  of  fulfilling  normal 
functions.”  But  straightway  he  begins  to  regard  any 
deviation  as  morbid  and  degenerate,  despite  the  obvious 
fact  that  it  may  be  quite  the  reverse.  He  says,  for  ex- 
ample, that  a man  with  web  toes  is  a degenerate,  and  then 
proceeds  to  argue  elaborately  from  that  premise,  en- 
tirely overlooking  the  fact  that  web  toes,  under  easily 
imaginable  circumstances,  might  be  an  advantage  in- 
stead of  a handicap,  and  that,  under  the  ordinary  con- 
ditions of  life,  we  are  unable  to  determine  with  any 
accuracy  whether  they  are  the  one  thing  or  the  other. 
So  with  the  symptoms  of  degeneracy  that  he  discovers 
in  Nietzsche.  He  shows  that  Nietzsche  differed  vastly 
from  the  average,  everyday  German  of  his  time,  and 
even  from  the  average  German  of  superior  culture  — 
that  he  thought  differently,  wrote  differently,  admired 
different  heroes  and  believed  in  different  gods  — but 
he  by  no  means  proves  thereby  that  Nietzsche’s  proc- 
esses of  thought  were  morbid  or  infirm,  or  that  the  con- 
clusions he  reached  were  invalid  a priori.  Since  Nordau 
startled  the  world  with  his  book,  the  Lombrosan  theory 
of  degeneracy  has  lost  ground  among  psychologists  and 
pathologists,  but  it  is  still  launched  against  Nietzsche 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  271 

by  an  occasional  critic,  and  so  it  deserves  to  be 
noticed. 

Nordau  s discussion  of  Nietzsche’s  insanity  is  rather 
more  intelligent  than  his  discussion  of  the  philosopher’s 
alleged  degeneracy,  if  only  because  his  facts  are  less  open 
to  dispute,  but  here,  too,  he  forgets  that  the  proof  of  an 
idea  is  not  to  be  sought  in  the  soundness  of  the  man 
fathering  it,  but  in  the  soundness  of  the  idea  itself.  One 
asks  of  a pudding,  not  if  the  cook  who  offers  it  is  a good 
woman,  but  if  the  pudding  itself  is  good.  Nordau,  in 
attempting  to  dispose  of  Nietzsche’s  philosophy  on  the 
ground  that  the  author  died  a madman,  succeeds  only 
in  piling  up  a mass  of  uncontroverted  but  irrelevant 
accusations.  He  shows  that  Nietzsche  was  an  utter 
believer  in  his  own  wisdom,  that  he  had  a fondness  for 
repeating  certain  favorite  arguments  ad  nauseam,  that 
he  was  violently  impatient  of  criticism,  that  he  chron- 
ically underestimated  the  man  opposed  to  him,  that  he 
sometimes  indulged  in  blasphemy  for  the  sheer  joy  of 
shocking  folks,  and  that  he  was  often  hypnotized  by  the 
exuberance  of  his  own  verbosity,  but  it  must  be  plain 
that  this  indictment  has  its  effective  answer  in  the  fact 
that  it  might  be  found  with  equal  justice  against  almost 
any  revolutionary  enthusiast  one  selected  at  random  — 
for  example,  Savonarola,  Tolstoi,  Luther,  Ibsen,  Garri- 
son, Phillips,  Wilkes,  Bakunin,  Marx,  or  Nordau  him- 
self. That  Nietzsche  died  insane  is  undoubted,  and  that 
his  insanity  was  not  sudden  in  its  onset  is  also  plain,  and 
one  may  even  admit  frankly  that  it  is  visible,  here  and 
there,  in  his  writings,  particularly  those  of  his  last  year 
or  two;  but  that  his  principal  doctrines,  the  ideas  upon 


272 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


which  his  fame  are  based,  are  the  fantasies  of  a maniac 
is  certainly  wholly  false.  Had  he  sought  to  prove  that 
cows  had  wings,  it  might  be  fair  today  to  dismiss  him  as 
Nordau  attempts  to  dismiss  him.  But  when  he  essayed 
to  prove  that  Christianity  impeded  progress,  he  laid 
down  a proposition  that,  whatever  its  novelty  and 
daring,  was  obviously  not  irrational,  and  neither  was 
there  anything  irrational  in  the  reasoning  whereby  he 
supported  it.  One  need  go  no  further  for  proof  of  this 
than  the  fact  that  multitudes  of  sane  men,  while  he  lived 
and  since  his  death,  have  debated  that  proposition  in  all 
seriousness  and  found  a plentiful  food  for  sober  thought 
in  Nietzsche’s  statement  and  defense  of  it.  Ibsen  also 
passed  out  of  life  in  mental  darkness,  and  so  did  Schu- 
mann, but  no  reasonable  critic  would  seek  thereby  to 
deny  all  intelligibility  to  “ Peer  Gynt  ” or  to  the  piano 
quintet  in  E flat. 

Again,  it  is  Nordau  who  chiefly  voices  the  second  of 
the  objections  noted  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
though  here  many  another  self-confessed  serpent  of 
wisdom  follows  him.  Nietzsche,  he  says,  tore  down 
without  building  up,  and  died  without  having  formulated 
any  workable  substitute  for  the  Christian  morality  he 
denounced.  Even  to  the  reader  who  has  got  no  further 
into  Nietzsche  than  the  preceding  chapters  of  this  book, 
the  absurdity  of  such  a charge  must  be  manifest  without 
argument.  No  man,  indeed,  ever  left  a more  compre- 
hensive system  of  ethics,  not  even  Comte  or  Herbert 
Spencer,  and  if  it  be  true  that  he  scattered  it  through  a 
dozen  books  and  that  he  occasionally  modified  it  in  some 
of  its  details,  it  is  equally  true  that  his  fundamental 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  273 


principles  were  always  stated  with  perfect  clearness  and 
that  they  remained  substantially  unchanged  from  first 
to  last.  But  even  supposing  that  he  had  died  before  he 
had  arranged  his  ideas  in  a connected  and  coherent  form, 
and  that  it  had  remained  for  his  disciples  to  deduce  and 
group  his  final  conclusions,  and  to  rid  the  whole  of  in- 
consistency — even  then  it  would  have  been  possible 
to  study  those  conclusions  seriously  and  to  accept  them 
for  what  they  were  worth.  Nordau  lays  it  down  as 
an  axiom  that  a man  cannot  be  a reformer  unless  he 
proposes  some  ready-made  and  perfectly  symmetrical 
scheme  of  things  to  take  the  place  of  the  notions  he  seeks 
to  overturn,  that  if  he  does  not  do  this  he  is  a mere 
hurler  of  bricks  and  shouter  of  blasphemies.  But  all  of 
us  know  that  this  is  not  true.  Nearly  every  considerable 
reform  the  world  knows  has  been  accomplished,  not  by 
one  man,  but  by  many  men  working  in  series.  It  seldom 
happens,  indeed,  that  the  man  who  first  points  out  the 
necessity  for  change  lives  long  enough  to  see  that  change 
accomplished,  or  even  to  define  its  precise  manner  and 
terms.  Nietzsche  himself  was  not  the  first  critic  of 
Christian  morality,  nor  did  he  so  far  dispose  of  the  ques- 
tion that  he  left  no  room  for  successors.  But  he  made 
a larger  contribution  to  it  than  any  man  had  ever  made 
before  him,  and  the  ideas  he  contributed  were  so  acute 
and  so  convincing  that  they  must  needs  be  taken  into 
account  by  every  critic  who  comes  after  him. 

So  much  for  the  first  two  arguments  against  the 
prophet  of  the  superman.  Both  raise  immaterial  ob- 
jections and  the  second  makes  an  allegation  that  is  gro- 
tesquely untrue.  The  other  three  are  founded  upon 


274 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


sounder  logic,  and,  when  maintained  skillfully,  afford 
more  reasonable  ground  for  objecting  to  the  Nietzschean 
system,  either  as  a whole  or  in  part.  It  would  be  inter- 
esting, perhaps,  to  attempt  a complete  review  of  the 
literature  embodying  them,  but  that  would  take  a great 
deal  more  space  than  is  here  available,  and  so  we  must  be 
content  with  a glance  at  a few  typical  efforts  at  refuta- 
tion. One  of  the  most  familiar  of  these  appears  in  the 
argument  that  the  messianic  obligation  of  self-sacrifice, 
whatever  its  cost,  has  yet  yielded  the  race  a large  profit 
— that  we  are  the  better  for  our  Christian  charity  and 
that  we  owe  it  entirely  to  Christianity.  This  argument 
has  been  best  put  forward,  perhaps,  by  Bennett  Hume, 
an  Englishman.  If  it  were  not  for  Christian  charity, 
i/says  Mr.  Hume,  there  would  be  no  hospitals  and  asylums 
for  the  sick  and  insane,  and  in  consequence,  no  concerted 
and  effective  effort  to  make  man  more  healthy  and  effi- 
cient. Therefore,  he  maintains,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  influence  of  Christianity,  as  a moral  system, 
has  been  for  the  good  of  the  race.  But  this  argument, 
in  inspection,  quickly  goes  to  pieces,  and  for  two  reasons. 
In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  obvious  that  the  advan- 
tages of  preserving  the  unfit,  few  of  whom  ever  become 
wholly  fit  again,  are  more  than  dubious;  and  in  the 
second  place,  it  must  be  plain  that  modern  humani- 
tarianism,  in  so  far  as  it  is  scientific  and  unsentimental 
and  hence  profitable,  is  so  little  a purely  Christian  idea 
that  the  Christian  church,  even  down  to  our  own  time, 
has  actually  opposed  it.  No  man,  indeed,  can  read  Dr. 
Andrew  D.  White’s  great  history  of  the  warfare  between 
science  and  the  church  without  carrying  away  the  con- 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  275 


viction  that  such  great  boons  as  the  conquest  of  small- 
pox and  malaria,  the  development  of  surgery,  the  im- 
proved treatment  of  the  insane,  and  the  general  lowering 
of  the  death  rate  have  been  brought  about,  not  by  the 
maudlin  alms-giving  of  Christian  priests,  but  by  the 
intelligent  meliorism  of  rebels  against  a blind  faith, 
ruthless  in  their  ways  and  means  but  stupendously  suc- 
cessful in  their  achievement. 

Another  critic,  this  time  a Frenchman,  Alfred  Fouil- 
lee  by  name,1  chooses  as  his  point  of  attack  the  Niet- 
zschean  doctrine  that  a struggle  is  welcome  and  benefi- 
cial to  the  strongi^  that  intelligent  self-seeking,  accom- 
panied by  a certain  willingness  to  take  risks,  is  the  road 
of  progress.  A struggle,  argues  M.  Fouillee,  always 
means  an  expenditure  of  strength,  and  strength,  when  so 
expended,  is  further  weakened  by  the  opposing  strength 
it  arouses  and  stimulates.  Darwin  is  summoned  from 
his  tomb  to  substantiate  this  argument,  but  its  expo- 
nent seems  to  forget  (while  actually  stating  it!)  the  fa- 
miliar physiological  axiom,  so  often  turned  to  by  Dar- 
win, that  strength  is  one  of  the  effects  of  use,  and  the 
Darwinian  corollary  that  disuse,  whether  produced  by 
organized  protection  or  in  some  other  wTay,  leads  in- 
evitably to  weakness  and  atrophy.  In  other  words,  the 
ideal  strong  man  of  M.  Fouillee’s  dream  is  one  who  seeks, 
with  great  enthusiasm,  the  readiest  possible  way  of  rid- 
ding himself  of  his  strength. 

Nordau,  Violet  Paget  and  various  other  critics  attack 

1 Author  of  “ Nietzsche  et  VImmoralisme  ” and  other  books.  The 
argument  discussed  appears  in  an  article  in  the  International  Monthly 
for  March,  1901,  pp.  134-165. 


276 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


Nietzsche  from  much  the  same  side.  That  is  to  say,  they 
endeavor  to  controvert  his  criticism  of  humility  and  self- 
sacrifice  and  to  show  that  the  law  of  natural  selection, 
with  its  insistence  that  only  the  fittest  shall  survive,  is 
insufficient  to  insure  human  progress.  Miss  Paget,  for 
example,1  argues  that  if  there  were  no  belief  in  every 
man’s  duty  to  yield  something  to  his  weaker  brother  the 
race  would  soon  become  a herd  of  mere  wild  beasts.  She 
sees  humility  as  a sort  of  brake  or  governor,  placed  upon 
humanity  to  keep  it  from  running  amuck.  A human 
being  is  so  constituted,  she  says,  that  he  necessarily 
looms  in  his  own  view  as  large  as  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
put  together.  This  distortion  of  values  is  met  with  in 
the  consciousness  of  every  individual,  and  if  there  were 
nothing  to  oppose  it,  it  would  lead  to  a hopeless  conflict 
between  exaggerated  egos.  Humility,  says  Miss  Paget, 
tempers  the  conflict,  without  wholly  ending  it.  A m n’s 
inherent  tendency  to  magnify  his  own  importance  and 
to  invite  death  by  trying  to  force  that  view  upon  others 
is  held  in  check  by  the  idea  that  it  is  his  duty  to  consider 
the  welfare  of  those  others.  The  objection  to  all  this  is 
that  the  picture  of  humility  Miss  Paget  draws  is  not  at 
all  a picture  of  self-sacrifice,  of  something  founded  upon 
an  unselfish  idea  of  duty,  but  a picture  of  highly  intelli- 
gent egoism.  Whatever  his  pharisaical  account  of  his 
motives,  it  must  be  obvious  that  her  Christian  gentle- 
man is  merely  a man  who  throws  bones  to  the  dogs  about 
him.  Between  such  wise  prudence  and  the  immolation 
of  the  Beatitudes  a wide  gulf  is  fixed.  As  a matter  of 
fact,  that  prudence  is  certainly  not  opposed  by  Niet- 
1 In  the  North  American  Review  for  Dec.,  1904. 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  277 


zsche.  The  higher  man  of  his  visions  is  far  from  a mere 
brawler.  He  is  not  afraid  of  an  open  fight,  and  he  is 
never  held  back  by  fear  of  hurting  his  antagonist,  but 
he  also  understands  that  there  are  times  for  truce  and 
guile.  In  brief,  his  self-seeking  is  conducted,  not  alone 
by  his  fists,  but  also  by  his  head.  He  knows  when  to 
pounce  upon  his  foes  and  rivals,  but  he  also  knows  when 
to  keep  them  from  pouncing  upon  him.  Thus  Miss 
Paget’s  somewhat  elaborate  refutation,  though  it  leads 
to  an  undoubtedly  sound  conclusion,  by  no  means  dis- 
poses of  Nietzsche. 

The  other  branches  of  the  argument  that  self-sacrifice 
is  beneficial  open  an  endless  field  of  debate,  in  which  the 
same  set  of  facts  is  often  susceptible  of  diametrically 
opposite  interpretations.  We  have  already  glanced  at 
the  alleged  effects  of  Christian  charity  upon  progress, 
and  observed  the  enormous  difference  between  senti- 
mental efforts  to  preserve  the  unfit  and  intelligent  ef- 
forts to  make  them  fit,  and  we  have  seen  how  practical 
Christianity,  whatever  its  theoretical  effects,  has  had 
the  actual  effect  of  furthering  the  former  and  hindering 
the  latter.  It  is  often  argued  that  there  is  unfairness  in 
thus  burdening  the  creed  with  the  crimes  of  the  church, 
but  how  the  two  are  to  be  separated  is  never  explained. 
What  sounder  test  of  a creed’s  essential  value  can  we 
imagine  than  that  of  its  visible  influence  upon  the  men 
who  subscribe  to  it?  And  what  sounder  test  of  its  terms 
than  the  statement  of  its  ordained  teachers  and  inter- 
preters, supported  by  the  unanimous  approval  of  all 
who  profess  it?  We  are  here  dealing,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered, not  with  esoteric  doctrines,  but  with  practical 


278 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


doctrines  — that  is  to  say,  with  working  policies.  If 
the  Christian  ideal  of  charity  is  to  be  defended  as  a 
working  policy,  then  it  is  certainly  fair  to  examine  it  at 
work.  And  when  that  is  done  the  reflective  observer  is 
almost  certain  to  conclude  that  it  is  opposed  to  true 
progress,  that  it  acts  as  a sentimental  shield  to  the  unfit 
without  helping  them  in  the  slightest  to  shake  off  their 
unfitness.  What  is  more,  it  stands  contrary  to  that  wise 
forethought  which  sacrifices  one  man  today  that  ten 
may  be  saved  tomorrow.  Nothing  could  be  more  patent, 
indeed,  than  the  high  cost  to  humanity  of  the  Christian 
teaching  that  it  is  immoral  to  seek  the  truth  outside  the 
Word  of  God,  or  to  take  thought  of  an  earthly  tomorrow, 
or  to  draw  distinctions  in  value  between  beings  who  all 
possess  souls  of  infinite,  and  therefore  of  exactly  equal 
preciousness. 

But  setting  aside  the  doctrine  that  self-sacrifice  is  a 
religious  duty,  there  remains  the  doctrine  that  it  is  a 
measure  of  expediency,  that  when  the  strong  help  the 
weak  they  also  help  themselves.  Let  it  be  said  at  once 
that  this  second  doctrine,  provided  only  it  be  applied 
intelligently  and  without  any  admixture  of  sentimental- 
ity, is  not  in  opposition  to  anything  in  Nietzsche’s  phi- 
losophy. On  the  contrary,  he  is  at  pains  to  point  out  the 
value  of  exploiting  the  inefficient  masses,  and  obviously 
that  exploitation  is  impossible  without  some  concession 
to  their  habits  and  desires,  some  offer,  however  fraudu- 
lent, of  a quid  pro  quo  — - and  unprofitable  unless  they 
can  be  made  to  yield  more  than  they  absorb.  For  one 
thing,  there  is  the  business  of  keeping  the  lower  castes 
in  health.  They  themselves  are  too  ignorant  and  lazy 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  279 


to  manage  it,  and  therefore  it  must  be  managed  by  their 
betters.  When  we  appropriate  money  from  the  public 
funds  to  pay  for  vaccinating  a horde  of  negroes,  we  do 
not  do  it  because  we  have  any  sympathy  for  them  or 
because  we  crave  their  blessings,  but  simply  because  we 
don’t  want  them  to  be  falling  ill  of  smallpox  in  our  kitch- 
ens and  stables,  to  the  peril  of  our  own  health  and  the 
neglect  of  our  necessary  drudgery.1  In  so  far  as  the 
negroes  have  any  voice  in  the  matter  at  all,  they  protest 
against  vaccination,  for  they  can’t  understand  its  theory 
and  so  they  see  only  its  tyranny,  but  we  vaccinate  them 
nevertheless,  and  thus  increase  their  mass  efficiency  in 
spite  of  them.  It  costs  something  to  do  the  work,  but 
we  see  a profit  in  it.  Here  we  have  a good  example  of 
self-sacrifice  based  frankly  upon  expediency,  and  Niet- 
zsche has  nothing  to  say  against  it. 

But  what  he  does  insist  upon  is  that  we  must  beware 
of  mixing  sentimentality  with  the  business,  that  we  must 
keep  the  idea  of  expediency  clear  of  any  idea  of  altruism. 
The  trouble  with  the  world,  as  he  describes  it,  is  that 
such  a corruption  almost  always  takes  place.  That  is 
to  say,  we  too  often  practise  charity,  not  because  it  is 
worth  while,  but  merely  because  it  is  pleasant.  The 
Christian  ideal,  he  says,  “knows  how  to  enrapture.” 
Starting  out  from  the  safe  premise,  approved  by  human 
experience,  that  it  is  sometimes  a virtue  — i.  e.,  a 
measure  of  intelligent  prudence  — to  help  the  weak,  we 
proceed  to  the  illogical  conclusion  that  it  is  always  a 

1 A more  extended  treatment  of  this  point  will  be  found  in  “ Men  vs. 
the  Man,”  by  Robert  Rives  La  Monte  and  the  present  author;  New 
York,  1910. 


28o 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


virtue.  Hence  our  wholesale  coddling  of  the  unfit,  our 
enormous  expenditure  upon  vain  schemes  of  ameliora- 
tion, our  vain  efforts  to  combat  the  laws  of  nature.  We 
nurse  the  defective  children  of  the  lower  classes  into  some 
appearance  of  health,  and  then  turn  them  out  to  beget 
their  kind.  We  parole  the  pickpocket,  launch  him  upon 
society  with  a tract  in  his  hand  — and  lose  our  pocket- 
books  next  day.  We  send  missionaries  to  the  heathen, 
build  hospitals  for  them,  civilize  and  educate  them  — 
and  later  on  have  to  fight  them.  We  save  a pauper  con- 
sumptive today,  on  the  ostensible  theory  that  he  is 
more  valuable  saved  than  dead  — and  so  open  the  way 
for  saving  his  innumerable  grandchildren  in  the  future. 
In  brief,  our  self-sacrifice  of  expediency  seldom  remains 
undefiled.  Nine  times  out  of  ten  a sentimental  color 
quickly  overcomes  it,  and  soon  or  late  there  is  apt  to  be 
more  sentimentality  in  it  than  expediency. 

What  is  worse,  this  sentimentalism  results  in  attach- 
ing a sort  of  romantic  glamour  to  its  objects.  Just  as 
the  Sunday-school  teaching  virgin,  beginning  by  trying 
to  save  the  Chinese  laundryman’s  soul,  commonly  ends 
by  falling  in  love  with  him,  so  the  virtuoso  of  any  other 
sort  of  charity  commonly  ends  by  endowing  its  bene- 
ficiary with  a variety  of  imaginary  virtues.  Sympathy, 
by  some  subtle  alchemy,  is  converted  into  a sneaking 
admiration.  “ Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit  ” becomes 
“ Blessed  are  the  poor.”  This  exaltation  of  inefficiency, 
it  must  be  manifest,  is  a dangerous  error.  There  is,  in 
fact,  nothing  at  all  honorable  about  unfitness,  considered 
in  the  mass.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  invariably  a symp- 
tom of  actual  dishonor  — of  neglect,  laziness,  ignorance 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  281 


and  depravity  — if  not  primarily  in  the  individual  him- 
self, then  at  least  in  his  forebears,  whose  weakness  he 
carries  on.  It  is  highly  important  that  this  fact  should 
be  kept  in  mind  by  the  human  race,  that  the  essential 
inferiority  of  the  inefficient  should  be  insisted  upon,  that 
the  penalties  of  deliberate  slackness  should  be  swift  and 
merciless.  But  as  it  is,  those  penalties  are  too  often  re- 
duced to  nothing  by  charity, while  the  offense  they  should 
punish  is  elevated  to  a fictitious  martyrdom.  Thus  we 
have  charity  converted  into  an  instrument  of  debauch- 
ery. Thus  we  have  it  playing  the  part  of  an  active  agent 
of  decay,  and  so  increasing  the  hazards  of  life  on  earth. 
“ We  may  compare  civilized  man,”  says  Sir  Ray  Lan- 
kester,1  “ to  a successful  rebel  against  nature,  who  by 
every  step  forward  renders  himself  liable  to  greater  and 
greater  penalties.”  No  need  to  offer  cases  in  point. 
Every  one  of  us  knows  what  the  Poor  Laws  of  England 
have  accomplished  in  a hundred  years  — how  they  have 
multiplied  misery  enormously  and  created  a caste  of 
professional  paupers  — how  they  have  seduced  that 
caste  downward  into  depths  of  degradation  untouched 
by  any  other  civilized  race  in  history  — and  how,  by 
hanging  the  crushing  burden  of  that  caste  about  the 
necks  of  the  English  people,  they  have  helped  to  weaken 
and  sicken  the  whole  stock  and  to  imperil  the  future  of 
the  nation. 

So  much  for  the  utility  of  self-sacrifice  — undeniable, 
perhaps,  so  long  as  a wise  and  ruthless  foresight  rules,  but 
immediately  questionable  when  sentimentality  enters 
into  the  matter.  There  remains  the  answer  in  rebuttal 

1 In  “ The  Kingdom  of  Man,”  London,  1907. 


282 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


that  sentimentality,  after  all,  is  native  to  the  soul  of 
man,  that  we  couldn’t  get  rid  of  it  if  we  tried.  Herein, 
if  we  look  closely,  we  will  observe  tracks  of  an  idea  that 
has  colored  the  whole  stream  of  human  thought  since 
the  dawn  of  Western  philosophy,  and  is  accepted  today, 
as  irrefutably  true,  by  all  who  pound  pulpits  and  wave 
their  arms  and  call  upon  their  fellow  men  to  repent.  It 
has  clogged  all  ethical  inquiry  for  two  thousand  years, 
it  has  been  a premise  in  a million  moral  syllogisms,  it 
has  survived  the  assaults  of  all  the  iconoclasts  that  ever 
lived.  It  is  taught  in  all  our  schools  today  and  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  all  our  laws,  prophecies  and  revelations. 
It  is  the  foundation  and  cornerstone,  not  only  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  also  of  every  other  compound  of  theology 
and  morality  known  in  the  world.  And  what  is  this  king 
of  all  axioms  and  emperor  of  all  fallacies?  Simply  the 
idea  that  there  are  rules  of  “ natural  morality  ” engraven 
indelibly  upon  the  hearts  of  man  — that  all  men,  at  all 
times  and  everywhere,  have  ever  agreed,  do  now  agree 
and  will  agree  forevermore,  unanimously  and  without 
reservation,  that  certain  things  are  right  and  certain 
other  things  are  wrong,  that  certain  things  are  nice  and 
certain  other  things  are  not  nice,  that  certain  things  are 
pleasing  to  God  and  certain  other  things  are  offensive 
to  God. 

In  every  treatise  upon  Christian  ethics  and  “ natural 
theology,”  so  called,  you  will  find  these  rules  of  “ natu- 
ral morality  ” in  the  first  chapter.  Thomas  Aquinas 
called  them  “ the  eternal  law.”  Even  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  for  all  their  skepticism  in  morals,  had  a sneak- 
ing belief  in  them.  Aristotle  tried  to  formulate  them  and 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  283 


the  Latin  lawyers  constantly  assumed  their  existence. 
Most  of  them  are  held  in  firm  faith  today  by  all  save  a 
small  minority  of  the  folk  of  Christendom.  The  most 
familiar  of  them,  perhaps,  is  the  rule  against  murder  — 
the  sixth  commandment.  Another  is  the  rule  against 
the  violation  of  property  in  goods,  wives  and  cattle  — 
the  eighth  and  tenth  commandments.  A third  is  the 
rule  upon  which  the  solidity  of  the  family  is  based,  and 
with  it  the  solidity  of  the  tribe  — the  fifth  command- 
ment. The  theory  behind  these  rules  is,  not  only  that 
they  are  wise,  but  that  they  are  innate  and  sempiternal, 
that  every  truly  enlightened  man  recognizes  their  valid- 
ity intuitively,  and  is  conscious  of  sin  when  he  breaks 
them.  To  them  Christianity  added  an  eleventh  com- 
mandment, a sort  of  infinite  extension  of  the  fifth,  “ that 
ye  love  one  another  ” 1 — and  in  two  thousand  years  it 
has  been  converted  from  a novelty  into  a universality. 
That  is  to  say,  its  point  of  definite  origin  has  been  lost 
sight  of,  and  it  has  been  moved  over  into  the  group  of 
“ natural  virtues,”  of  “ eternal  laws.”  When  Christ 
first  voiced  it,  in  his  discourse  at  the  Last  Supper,  it  was 
so  far  from  general  acceptance  that  he  named  a belief 
in  it  as  one  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  his  disciples, 
but  now  our  moralists  tell  us  that  it  is  in  the  blood  of 
all  of  us,  and  that  we  couldn’t  repudiate  it  if  we  would. 
Brotherhood,  indeed,  is  the  very  soul  of  Christianity, 
and  the  only  effort  of  the  pious  today  is  to  raise  it  from 
a universal  theory  to  a universal  fact. 

But  the  truth  is,  of  course,  that  it  is  not  universal  at 
all,  and  that  nothing  in  the  so-called  soul  of  man  prompts 
1 John  XIII,  34- 


284 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


him  to  subscribe  to  it.  We  cling  to  it  today,  not  because 
it  is  inherent  in  us,  but  simply  because  it  is  the  moral 
fashion  of  our  age.  When  the  disciples  first  heard  it  put 
into  terms,  it  probably  struck  them  as  a revolutionary 
novelty,  and  on  some  dim  tomorrow  our  descendants 
may  regard  it  as  an  archaic  absurdity.  In  brief,  rules  of 
morality  are  wholly  temporal  and  temporary,  for  the 
good  and  sufficient  reason  that  there  is  no  “ natural 
morality  ” in  man  — and  the  sentimental  rule  that  the 
strong  shall  give  of  their  strength  to  the  weak  is  no  ex- 
ception. There  have  been  times  in  the  history  of  the 
race  when  few,  if  any  intelligent  men  subscribed  to  it, 
and  there  are  thousands  of  intelligent  men  who  refuse  to 
subscribe  to  it  today,  and  no  doubt  there  will  come  a time 
when  those  who  are  against  it  will  once  more  greatly 
outnumber  those  who  are  in  favor  of  it.  So  with  all 
other  “eternal  laws.”  Their  eternality  exists  only  in  the 
imagination  of  those  who  seek  to  glorify  them.  Niet- 
zsche himself  spent  his  best  years  demonstrating  this, 
and  we  have  seen  how  he  set  about  the  task  — how  he 
showed  that  the  “ good  ” of  one  race  and  age  was  the 
“ bad  ” of  some  other  race  and  age  — how  the  “ natu- 
ral morality  ” of  the  Periclean  Greeks,  for  example,  dif- 
fered diametrically  from  the  “ natural  morality  ” of  the 
captive  Jews.  All  history  bears  him  out.  Mankind  is 
ever  revising  and  abandoning  its  “ inherent  ” ideas. 
We  say  today  that  the  human  mind  instinctively  revolts 
against  cruel  punishments,  and  yet  a moment’s  reflec- 
tion recalls  the  fact  that  the  world  is,  and  always  has 
been  peopled  by  millions  to  whom  cruelty,  not  only  to 
enemies  but  to  the  weak  in  general,  seems  and  has 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  285 


seemed  wholly  natural  and  agreeable.  We  say  that 
man  has  an  “ innate  ” impulse  to  be  fair  and  just,  and 
yet  it  is  a commonplace  observation  that  multitudes  of 
men,  in  the  midst  of  our  most  civilized  societies,  have 
little  more  sense  of  justice  than  so  many  jackals.  There- 
fore, we  may  safely  set  aside  the  argument  that  a “ nat- 
ural ” instinct  for  sentimental  self-sacrifice  stands  as 
an  impassable  barrier  to  Nietzsche’s  dionysian  philos- 
ophy. There  is  no  such  barrier.  There  is  no  such  in- 
stinct. It  is  an  idea  merely  — an  idea  powerful  and 
persistent,  but  still  mutable  and  mortal.  Certainly, 
it  is  absurd  to  plead  it  in  proof  against  the  one  man  who 
did  most  to  establish  its  mutability. 

We  come  now  to  the  final  argument  against  Niet- 
zsche — the  argument,  to  wit,  that,  even  admitting  his 
criticism  of  Christian  morality  to  be  well-founded,  he 
offers  nothing  in  place  of  it  that  would  serve  the  world 
as  well.  The  principal  spokesman  of  this  objection, 
perhaps,  is  Paul  Elmer  More,  who  sets  it  forth  at  some 
length  in  his  hostile  but  very  ingenious  little  study  of 
Nietzsche.1  Mr.  More  goes  back  to  Locke  to  show  the 
growth  of  the  two  ideas  which  stand  opposed  as  Social- 
ism and  individualism,  Christianity  and  Nietzscheism 
today.  So  long,  he  says,  as  man  believed  in  revelation, 
there  was  no  genuine  effort  to  get  at  the  springs  of 
human  action,  for  every  impulse  that  was  ratified  by 
the  Scriptures  was  believed  to  be  natural  and  moral,  and 
every  impulse  that  went  counter  to  the  Scriptures  was 
believed  to  be  sinful,  even  by  those  who  yielded  to  it 

1 “ Nietzsche,”  Boston,  1912.  Reprinted  in  “ The  Drift  of  Romanti- 
cism,” pp.  147-190,  Boston,  1913. 


286  FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


habitually.  But  when  that  idea  was  cleared  away,  there 
arose  a need  for  something  to  take  its  place,  and  Locke 
came  forward  with  his  theory  that  the  notion  of  good 
was  founded  upon  sensations  of  pleasure  and  that  of 
bad  upon  sensations  of  pain.  There  followed  Hume, 
with  his  elaborate  effort  to  prove  that  sympathy  was  a 
source  of  pleasure,  by  reason  of  its  grateful  tickling  of 
the  sense  of  virtue,  and  so  the  new  conception  of  good 
finally  stood  erect,  with  one  foot  on  frank  self-interest 
and  the  other  on  sympathy.  Mr.  More  shows  how, 
during  the  century  following,  the  importance  of  the 
second  of  these  factors  began  to  be  accentuated,  under 
the  influence  of  Rousseau  and  his  followers,  and  how, 
in  the  end,  the  first  was  forgotten  almost  entirely  and 
there  arose  a non-Christian  sentimentality  which  was 
worse,  if  anything,  than  the  sentimentality  of  the  Beati- 
tudes. In  England,  France  and  Germany  it  colored  al- 
most the  whole  of  philosophy,  literature  and  politics. 
Stray  men,  true  enough,  raised  their  voices  against  it, 
but  its  sweep  was  irresistible.  Its  fruits  were  diverse 
and  memorable  — - the  romantic  movement  in  Germany, 
humanitarianism  in  England,  the  Kantian  note  in  ethics, 
and,  most  important  of  all,  Socialism. 

That  this  exaltation  of  sympathy  was  imprudent, 
and  that  its  effects,  in  our  own  time,  are  far  from  satis- 
factory, Mr.  More  is  disposed  to  grant  freely.  It  is 
perfectly  true,  as  Nietzsche  argues,  that  humanitari- 
anism has  been  guilty  of  gross  excesses,  that  there  is  a 
“ danger  that  threatens  true  progress  in  any  system  of 
education  and  government  which  makes  the  advantage  of 
the  average  rather  than  the  distinguished  man  its  chief 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  287 


object.”  But  Mr.  More  holds  that  the  danger  thus 
inherent  in  sympathy  is  matched  by  a danger  inherent 
in  selfishness,  that  we  are  no  worse  off  on  one  horn  of 
Hume’s  dual  ethic  than  we  should  be  on  the  other. 
Sympathy  unbalanced  by  self-seeking  leads  us  into 
maudlin  futilities  and  crimes  against  efficiency;  self- 
seeking  unchecked  by  sympathy  would  lead  us  into 
sheer  savagery.  If  there  is  any  choice  between  the  two, 
that  choice  is  probably  in  favor  of  sympathy,  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  happily  impossible  of  realization.  The 
most  lachrymose  of  the  romantics,  in  the  midst  of  their 
sentimentalizing,  were  yet  careful  of  their  own  welfare. 
Many  of  them,  indeed,  displayed  a quite  extraordinary 
egoism,  and  there  was  some  justice  in  Byron’s  sneer  that 
Sterne,  for  one,  preferred  weeping  over  a dead  ass  to 
relieving  the  want  (at  cost  to  himself)  of  a living  mother. 

But  in  urging  all  this  against  Nietzsche,  Mr.  More 
and  the  other  destructive  critics  of  the  superman  make 
a serious  error,  and  that  is  the  error  of  assuming  that 
Nietzsche  hoped  to  abolish  Christian  morality  com- 
pletely, that  he  proposed  a unanimous  desertion  of  the 
idea  of  sympathy  for  the  idea  of  intelligent  self-seeking. 
As  a matter  of  fact,  he  had  no  such  hope  and  made  no 
such  proposal.  Nothing  was  more  firmly  fixed  in  his 
mind,  indeed,  than  the  notion  that  the  vast  majority 
of  men  would  cling  indefinitely,  and  perhaps  for  all  time, 
to  some  system  of  morality  more  or  less  resembling  the 
Christian  morality  of  today.  Not  only  did  he  have  no 
expectation  of  winning  that  majority  from  its  idols,  but 
he  bitterly  resented  any  suggestion  that  such  a result 
might  follow  from  his  work.  The  whole  of  his  preach- 


288 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


ing  was  addressed,  not  to  men  in  the  mass,  but  to  the 
small  minority  of  exceptional  men  — not  to  those  who 
live  by  obeying,  but  to  those  who  live  by  commanding 
— not  to  the  race  as  a race,  but  only  to  its  masters.  It 
would  seem  to  be  impossible  that  any  reader  of  Niet- 
zsche should  overlook  this  important  fact,  and  yet  it  is 
constantly  overlooked  by  most  of  his  critics.  They  pro- 
ceed to  prove,  elaborately  and,  it  must  be  said,  quite 
convincingly,  that  if  his  transvaluation  of  values  were 
made  by  all  men,  the  world  would  be  no  better  off  than 
it  is  today,  and  perhaps  a good  deal  worse,  but  all  they 
accomplish  thereby  is  to  demolish  a hobgoblin  of  straw. 
Nietzsche  himself  sensed  the  essential  value  of  Hume’s 
dualism.  What  he  sought  to  do  was  not  to  destroy  it, 
but  to  restore  it,  and,  restoring  it,  to  raise  it  to  a state  of 
active  conflict  — to  dignify  self-interest  as  sympathy 
has  been  dignified,  and  so  to  put  the  two  in  perpetual 
opposition.  He  believed  that  the  former  was  by  long 
odds  the  safer  impulse  for  the  higher  castes  of  men  to 
follow,  if  only  because  of  its  obviously  closer  kinship  to 
the  natural  laws  which  make  for  progress  upward,  but 
by  the  same  token  he  saw  that  these  higher  castes  could 
gain  nothing  by  disturbing  the  narcotic  contentment  of 
the  castes  lower  down.  Therefore,  he  was,  to  that  ex- 
tent, an  actual  apologist  for  the  thing  he  elsewhere  so 
bitterly  attacked.  Sympathy,  self-sacrifice,  charity  — 
these  ideas  lulled  and  satisfied  the  chandala,  and  so  he 
was  content  to  have  the  chandala  hold  to  them.  “ Whom 
do  I hate  most  among  the  rabble  of  today?  The  Social- 
ist who  undermines  the  workingman’s  instincts,  who 
destroys  his  satisfaction  with  his  insignificant  existence, 


NIETZSCHE  AND  HIS  CRITICS  289 


who  makes  him  envious  and  teaches  him  revenge.”  1 
In  brief,  Nietzsche  dreamed  no  dream  of  all  mankind 
converted  into  a race  of  supermen:  the  only  vision  he 
saw  was  one  of  supermen  at  the  top. 

To  make  an  end,  his  philosophy  was  wholly  aristo- 
cratic, in  aim  as  well  as  in  terms.  He  believed  that 
superior  men,  by  which  he  meant  alert  and  restless  men, 
were  held  in  chains  by  the  illusions  and  inertia  of  the 
mass  — that  their  impulse  to  move  forward  and  upward, 
at  whatever  cost  to  those  below,  was  restrained  by  false 
notions  of  duty  and  responsibility.  It  was  his  effort  to 
break  down  those  false  notions,  to  show  that  the  prog- 
ress of  the  race  was  more  important  than  the  comfort 
of  the  herd,  to  combat  and  destroy  the  lingering  spectre 
of  sin  — in  his  own  phrase,  to  make  man  innocent.  But 
when  he  said  man  he  always  meant  the  higher  man, 
the  man  of  tomorrow,  and  not  mere  men.  For  the  latter 
he  had  only  contempt:  he  sneered  at  their  heroes,  at 
their  ideals,  at  their  definitions  of  good  and  evil.  “ There 
are  only  three  ways,”  he  said,  “ in  which  the  masses 
appear  to  me  to  deserve  a glance:  first,  as  blurred  copies 
of  their  betters,  printed  on  bad  paper  and  from  worn- 
out  plates;  secondly,  as  a necessary  opposition;  and 
thirdly,  as  tools.  Further  than  that  I hand  them  over 
to  statistics  — - and  the  devil.2  ...  I am  writing  for  a 
race  of  men  which  does  not  yet  exist.  I am  writing  for 
the  lords  of  the  earth.”  3 

1 “ Der  Antichrist 57. 

2 “ Vom  Nutzen  und  Nachtheil  der  Histone  fur  das  Leben,”  IX. 

3 “ Der  Wille  zur  Macht,”  958. 


HOW  TO  STUDY  NIETZSCHE 


Through  the  diligence  and  enthusiasm  of  Dr.  Oscar 
Levy,  author  of  “ The  Revival  of  Aristocracy,”  a Ger- 
man by  birth  but  for  some  time  a resident  of  London, 
the  whole  canon  of  Nietzsche’s  writings  is  now  to  be 
had  in  English  translation.  So  long  ago  as  1896  a com- 
plete edition  in  eleven  volumes  was  projected,  and  Dr. 
Alexander  Tille,  lecturer  on  German  in  the  University 
of  Glasgow,  and  author  of  “ Von  Darwin  bis  Nietzsche ,” 
was  engaged  to  edit  it.  But  though  it  started  fairly 
with  a volume  including  “ The  Case  of  Wagner  ” and 
“ The  Antichrist,”  and  four  more  volumes  followed  after 
a year  or  so,  it  got  no  further  than  that.  Ten  years  later 
came  Dr.  Levy.  He  met  with  little  encouragement 
when  he  began,  but  by  dint  of  unfailing  perseverance  he 
finally  gathered  about  him  a corps  of  competent  trans- 
lators, made  arrangements  with  publishers  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States,  and  got  the  work  under 
way.  His  eighteenth  and  last  volume  was  published 
early  in  1913. 

These  translations,  in  the  main,  are  excellent,  and 
explanatory  prefaces  and  notes  are  added  wherever 
needed.  The  contents  of  the  various  volumes  are  as 
follows: 

I.  “ The  Birth  of  Tragedy,”  translated  by  Wm.  A.  Hauss- 
mann,  Ph.  D.,  with  a biographical  introduction  by  Frau 

290 


HOW  TO  STUDY  NIETZSCHE  291 

Forster-Nietzsche,  a portrait  of  Nietzsche,  and  a facsimile 
of  his  manuscript. 

II.  “ Early  Greek  Philosophy  and  Other  Essays,”  trans- 
lated by  Maximilian  A.  Miigge,  Ph.  D.,  author  of  “ Friedrich 
Nietzsche:  His  Life  and  Work.”  Contents:  “ The  Greek 
Woman,”  “ On  Music  and  Words,”  “ Homer/ s Contest,” 
“ The  Relation  of  Schopenhauer’s  Philosophy  to  a German 
Culture,”  “ Philosophy  During  the  Tragic  Age  of  the 
Greeks,”  and  “ On  Truth  and  Falsity  in  Their  Ultramoral 
Sense.” 

III.  “ On  the  Future  of  Our  Educational  Institutions  ” 
and  “ Homer  and  Classical  Philology,”  translated  by  J.  M. 
Kennedy,  author  of  “ The  Quintessence  of  Nietzsche,”  with 
an  introduction  by  the  translator. 

IV.  “ Thoughts  Out  of  Season,”  I (“  David  Strauss,  the 
Confessor  and  the  Writer  ” and  “ Richard  Wagner  in  Bay- 
reuth ”),  translated  by  Anthony  M.  Ludovici,  author  of 
“ Nietzsche:  His  Life  and  Works,”  “ Nietzsche  and  Art,” 
and  “ Who  is  to  be  Master  of  the  World?  ” with  an 
introduction  by  Dr.  Levy  and  a preface  by  the  trans- 
lator. 

V.  “ Thoughts  Out  of  Season,”  II  (“  The  Use  and  Abuse 
of  History  ” and  “ Schopenhauer  as  Educator  ”),  translated 
by  Adrian  Collins,  M.  A.,  with  an  introduction  by  the  trans- 
lator. 

VI.  “ Human  All-Too  Human,”  I,  translated  by  Helen 
Zimmem,  with  an  introduction  by  J.  M.  Kennedy. 

VII.  “ Human  All-Too  Human,”  II,  translated  by  Paul 
V.  Cohn,  B.  A.,  with  an  introduction  by  the  translator. 

VIII.  “ The  Case  of  Wagner  ” (including  “ Nietzsche 
contra  Wagner”  and  selected  aphorisms),  translated  by  A. 
M.  Ludovici,  and  “We  Philologists,”  translated  by  J.  M. 
Kennedy,  with  prefaces  by  the  translators. 


292 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


IX.  “ The  Dawn  of  Day,”  translated  by  J.  M.  Kennedy, 
with  an  introduction  by  the  translator. 

X.  “ The  Joyful  Wisdom,”  translated  by  Thomas  Com- 
mon, author  of  “ Nietzsche  as  Critic,  Philosopher,  Poet  and 
Prophet  ” (including  “ Songs  of  Prince  Free-as-a-Bird,” 
translated  by  Paul  V.  Cohn  and  Maude  D.  Petre). 

XI.  “ Thus  Spake  Zarathustra,”  translated  by  Thomas 
Common,  with  an  introduction  by  Frau  Forster-Nietzsche 
and  explanatory  notes  by  A.  M.  Ludovici. 

XII.  “ Beyond  Good  and  Evil,”  translated  by  Helen 
Zimmem,  with  an  introduction  by  Thomas  Common. 

XIII.  “ The  Genealogy  of  Morals,”  translated  by  Horace 
B.  Samuel,  M.  A.,  and  “ People  and  Countries,”  translated 
by  J.  M.  Kennedy,  with  an  editor’s  note  by  Dr.  Levy. 

. -XIV.  “ The  Will  to  Power,”  I,  translated  by  A.  M.  Ludo- 
vici, with  a preface  by  the  translator. 

XV.  “ The  Will  to  Power,”  II,  translated  by  A.  M.  Ludo- 
vici, with  a preface  by  the  translator. 

XVI.  “ The  Twilight  of  the  Idols  ” (including  “ The 
Antichrist,”  “ Eternal  Recurrence  ” and  explanatory  notes 
to  “ Thus  Spake  Zarathustra  ”),  translated  by  A.  M.  Ludo- 
vici, with  a preface  by  the  translator. 

XVII.  “ Ecce  Homo,”  translated  by  A.  M.  Ludovici; 
various  songs,  epigrams  and  dithyrambs,  translated  by  Paul 
V.  Cohn,  Herman  Scheffauer,  Francis  Bickley  and  Dr.  G. 
T.  Wrench;  and  the  music  of  Nietzsche’s  “ Hymn  to  Life  ” 
(words  by  Lou  Salome),  with  an  introduction  by  Mr.  Ludo- 
vici, a note  to  the  poetry  by  Dr.  Levy,  and  a reproduction 
of  Karl  Donndorf’s  bust  of  Nietzsche. 

XVIII.  Index. 

The  student  who  would  read  Nietzsche  had  better 
begin  with  one  of  the  aphoristic  books,  preferably  “ The 


HOW  TO  STUDY  NIETZSCHE 


293 


Dawn  of  Day.”  From  that  let  him  proceed  to  “ Beyond 
Good  and  Evil,”  “ The  Genealogy  of  Morals  ” and 
“ The  Antichrist.”  He  will  then  be  ready  to  under- 
stand “ Thus  Spake  Zarathustra.”  Later  on  he  may 
read  “ Ecce  Homo  ” and  dip  into  “ The  Joyful  Wis- 
dom,” “ Human  All-Too  Human  ” and  “ The  Will  to 
Power,”  as  his  fancy  suggests.  The  Wagner  pamphlets 
are  of  more  importance  to  Wagnerians  than  to  students 
of  Nietzsche’s  ideas,  and  the  early  philological  and  critical 
essays  have  lost  much  of  their  interest  by  the  passage 
of  time.  Nietzsche’s  poetry  had  better  be  avoided  by 
all  who  cannot  read  it  in  the  original  German.  The 
English  translations  are  mostly  very  free  and  seldom 
satisfactory. 

Of  the  larger  Nietzschean  commentaries  in  English 
the  best  is  “ Friedrich  Nietzsche:  His  Life  and  Work,” 
by  M.  A.  Miigge.-''  Appended  to  it  is  a bibliography  of 
850  titles  — striking  evidence  of  the  attention  that 
Nietzsche’s  ideas  have  gained  in  the  world.  Other  books 
that  will  be  found  useful  are  “ The  Quintessence  of 
Nietzsche,”  by  J.  M.  Kennedy;  “ Nietzsche:  His  Life 
and  Works,”  by  Anthony  M.  Ludovici;  “ The  Gospel 
of  Superman,”  by  Henri  Lichtenberger,  translated  from 
the  French  by  J.  M.  Kennedy;  “ The  Philosophy  of 
Nietzsche,”  by  Georges  Chatterton-Hill,  and  “ The 
Philosophy  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche,”  by  Grace  Neal 
Dolson,  Ph.  D.,  this  last  a pioneer  work  of  permanent 
value.  Lesser  studies  are  to  be  found  in  “ Friedrich 
Nietzsche,”  by  A.  R.  Orage;  “Nietzsche  as  Critic, 
Philosopher,  Poet  and  Prophet,”  by  Thomas  Common; 
“ Friedrich  Nietzsche  and  His  New  Gospel,”  by  Emily 


294 


FRIEDRICH  NIETZSCHE 


S.  Hamblen,  and  “ Nietzsche,”  by  Paul  Elmer  More. 
Interesting  discussions  of  various  Nietzschean  ideas  are 
in  “ The  Revival  of  Aristocracy,”  by  Dr.  Oscar  Levy; 
u Who  is  to  be  Master  of  the  World?  ” by  A.  M.  Ludo- 
vici;  “ On  the  Tracks  of  Life,”  by  Leo  G.  Sera,  trans- 
lated from  the  Italian  by  J.  M.  Kennedy;  “ Nietzsche 
and  Art,”  by  A.  M.  Ludovici,  and  “ The  Mastery  of 
Life,”  by  G.  T.  Wrench.  Selections  from  Nietzsche’s 
writings  are  put  together  under  subject  headings  in 
“ Nietzsche  in  Outline  and  Aphorism,”  by  A.  R.  Orage; 
“ Nietzsche:  His  Maxims,”  by  J.  M.  Kennedy,  and 
“ The  Gist  of  Nietzsche,”  by  H.  L.  Mencken.  An  elab- 
orate and  invaluable  summary  of  all  Nietzsche’s  wri- 
tings, book  by  book,  is  to  be  found  in  “ What  Nietzsche 
Taught,”  by  Willard  H.  Wright.  This  volume,  the 
fruit  of  very  diligent  labor,  is  admirably  concise  and  well- 
ordered. 

The  standard  biography  of  Nietzsche  is  “ Das  Leben 
Friedrich  Nietzsches ,”  by  Frau  Forster-Nietzsche,  a 
large  work  in  three  volumes.  In  1911  Frau  Forster- 
Nietzsche  prepared  a shorter  version  and  this  has  since 
been  done  into  English  by  A.  M.  Ludovici,  and  pub- 
lished in  two  volumes,  under  the  title  of  “ The  Life  of 
Nietzsche.”  Unluckily,  so  devoted  a sister  was  not  the 
best  person  to  deal  with  certain  episodes  in  the  life  of 
her  brother  and  hero.  The  gaps  she  left  and  the  amelio- 
rations she  attempted  are  filled  and  corrected  in  “ The 
Life  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche,”  by  Daniel  Halevy,  trans- 
lated from  the  French  by  J.  M.  Hone,  with  an  extraor- 
dinarily brilliant  introduction  by  T.  M.  Kettle,  M.  P. 

Small  but  suggestive  studies  of  Nietzsche  and  his 


HOW  TO  STUDY  NIETZSCHE 


295 


ideas  are  to  be  found  in  “ Egoists,”  “ Mezzotints  in 
Modern  Music,”  and  “ The  Pathos  of  Distance,”  by 
James  Huneker;  “Degeneration,”  by  Max  Nordau; 
“ Affirmations,”  by  Havelock  Ellis;  “ Aristocracy  and 
Evolution,”  by  W.  H.  Mallock;  “ Heretics  ” and  “ Or- 
thodoxy,” by  G.  K.  Chesterton;  “ Lectures  and  Essays 
on  Natural  Theology,”  by  William  Wallace;  “ Heralds 
of  Revolt,”  by  William  Barry,  D.  D.;  “ Essays  in  So- 
ciology,” by  J.  M.  Robertson;  “ The  Larger  Aspects  of 
Socialism,”  by  William  English  Walling;  “ Three  Mod- 
ern Seers,”  by  Mrs.  Havelock  Ellis;  “ Slaves  to  Duty,” 
by  J.  Badcock;  “ In  Peril  of  Change,”  by  C.  F.  G. 
Masterman;  “ Man’s  Place  in  the  Cosmos,”  by  A.  Seth 
Pringle  Pattison;  and  “ Gospels  of  Anarchy,”  by  Ver- 
non Lee  (Violet  Paget).  George  Bernard  Shaw’s  varia- 
tions upon  Nietzschean  themes  are  in  “ The  Revolu- 
tionist’s Handbook,”  appended  to  “ Man  and  Super- 
man.” Of  magazine  articles  dealing  with  the  prophet 
of  the  superman  there  has  been  no  end  of  late.  Most  of 
them  are  worthless,  but  any  bearing  the  name  of  Grace 
Neal  Dolson,  Thomas  Common,  Thomas  Stockham 
Baker  or  Maude  D.  Petre  may  be  read  with  profit.  One 
of  the  best  discussions  of  Nietzsche  I have  ever  en- 
countered was  contributed  to  the  Catholic  World  during 
December,  1905,  and  January,  February,  March,  May 
and  June,  1906,  by  Miss  Petre.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  these  excellent  papers,  which  sought  to  rescue 
Nietzsche  from  the  misunderstandings  of  Christian 
critics,  have  not  been  re-printed  in  book-form. 


INDEX 


Adieu,  I Must  Go!,  patriotic  song, 
55-  . 

A morfati,  260. 

Anarchism,  98-99,  192,  196,  197, 
200. 

Andreas-Salome,  see  Salome. 
Antichrist,  The  — 

Publication  of,  47. 

Quotations  from,  64,  77,  102, 
127,  133,  135,  138,  1 54,  158, 
164,  169,  289. 

Style  of,  55. 

English  translation  of,  292. 

Apollo  — 

First  conception  of,  25,  257. 

God  of  music  and  poetry,  67. 
Influence  of,  67,  74. 

Conflict  with  Dionysus,  68  et 
seq.  — — 

Aquinas,  Thomas,  282. 

Arcelaus,  256. 

Aristocracy,  73,  102,  163-164, 
166  et  seq.,  195,  240,  289. 

Art  for  art’s  sake,  234-235. 
Asceticism,  21  footnote,  179,  214, 
259- 

Atheism,  215,  262. 

Bacchus  Dionysus  — 

First  conception  of,  25,  257. 
Imported  into  Greece,  68. 

God  of  strenuous  life,  68-69. 
Conflict  with  Apollo,  25,  69  et\ 
seq. 

Nietzsche  a Dionysian,  26,  73J 
Bad,  definition  of,  101,  205.' 
Badcock,  J.,  295. 

Baker.  Thomas  Stockham,  295. 
Balfour,  A.  J.,  141, 


Barry,  Wm.,  295. 

Basel,  University  of  — 

Nietzsche  appointed  prof.,  22. 
Lectures  on  Greek  drama,  24. 
In  academic  society,  27. 

Leave  of  absence,  38. 

Resigns  professorship,  40. 

In  asylum  at,  48. 

Income  at,  54. 

Beauty,  the  idea  of,  234. 

Beer,  Nietzsche’s  dislike  of,  15. 
Beyle,  Marie  Henri,  see  Stendhal. 
Beyond  Good  and  Evil  — 
Publication  of,  46. 

Quotations  from,  84,  94,  102, 
157- 

Argument  of,  88-99. 

English  translation  of,  292. 
Beyond-man,  see  Higher  man. 
Bible,  Nietzsche’s  knowledge  of, 
7,  13 

Bible,  quotations  from,  76,  no, 
127,  129,  13c,  283. 

Bickley,  Francis,  292. 

Birth  of  Tragedy,  The  — 

Its  genesis  and  publication,  24, 
244. 

%JQocijinfi^of^4^2^_^3-73 . 
Quotation  from,  66. 

Revised,  24  footnote. 

English  translation  of,  291. 
Bizet’s  music,  173. 

Blake,  William,  256. 

Blond  beast,  112. 

Bonn,  Nietzsche’s  career  at,  13- 
i5- 

Bradley,  Henry,  83. 

Brandes,  Georg,  48. 


297 


298 


INDEX 


Buddhism,  iox. 

Burkhardt,  Prof.,  48. 

Butler,  Samuel,  256. 

Callicles,  256. 

Castes,  163-164. 

Catholic  World,  295. 

Celibacy,  X79,  186,  214. 
Chamfort,  38,  266. 

Chandala,  see  Masses. 

Charity,  86,  136,  274,  281,  288. 
Chatterton-Hill,  Georges,  293. 
Chesterton,  G.  K.,  295. 

Chivalry,  186. 

Chloral,  Nietzsche’s  use  of,  52. 
Christian  Science,  51,  101,  120. 
Christianity  — 

Nietzsche’s  indictment  of,  36, 
126. 

Scientific  revolt  against,  128. 
Its  dogmas  examined,  129-131, 
214. 

Free  will  vs.  determinism,  130. 
Its  slave-morality,  85-87,  88, 
101,  133  et  seq.,  273. 

Charity,  136,  274-275,  281. 
Opposition  to  natural  selection, 
74,  133  et  seq. 

Nietzsche’s  attack  on  self-sac- 
rifice, 142. 

Origin  of  Christianity,  85-86, 
145- 

Cohn,  Paul  V.,  291. 

College,  American,  224. 

Collins,  Adrian,  291. 
Commercialism,  199. 

Common,  Thomas,  5 3 footnote,  255, 
293,  295. 

Comte,  Auguste,  115, 124, 150,  256, 
272. 

Conscience,  the  nature  of,  212. 
Costume,  21 1 footnote. 

Cron,  Bernard,  see  Gast. 
Crucifixion,  the,  128. 

Culture,  German,  35. 

Dancing,  175. 

Darwin,  Charles,  37,  198,  255, 
256,  261,  268,  275. 

David  Strauss,  the  Confessor  and 
the  Writer  — 

Publication  of,  30. 


Quotation  from,  30-3  r. 

English  translation  of,  291. 

See  also  Strauss,  David. 

Dawn  of  Day,  The  — 

Publication  of,  42. 

Quotations  from,  77,  95,  96, 
172,  179,  182,  188,  201,  202- 
203  footnote,  206,  223,  231, 
233>  237,  239,  241. 

English  translation  of,  292. 
Death  — 

The  right  to  die,  226-227. 
Regulation  of,  169,  228. 
Attitude  at,  228. 

Death  of  Nietzsche,  49. 
Decalogue,  80,  91,  202,  283. 
Degeneracy,  Nietzsche’s  alleged, 
270. 

Degeneration,  Nordau’s  book,  269. 
Democracy,  193,  236. 

Descartes,  149. 

Desire,  180-182. 

Determinism,  130,  157,  161. 
Diderot,  255. 

Diogenes  Laertius,  early  essay  on, 
17- 

Dionysus,  see  Bacchus. 

Dionysus,  the  Philosophy  of  Eter- 
nal Recurrence,  plan  of  pro- 
posed book,  47. 

Doctor  of  philosophy,  22. 

Dolson,  Grace  Neal,  293,  295. 
Donndorf,  Karl,  292. 

Drama,  Greek,  26,  65  et  seq. 
Draper,  J.  W.,  148. 

Dreams,  241. 

Dualism,  140,  288. 

Ecce  Homo  — 

Publication  of,  48. 

Quotations  from,  262,  266,  267. 
English  translation  of,  292. 
Education,  perils  of  State  aid,  32, 
218. 

Egoism,  Stirner’s,  262-263. 
Elective  Affinities,  265. 

Ellis,  Havelock,  295. 

Ellis,  Mrs.  Havelock,  295. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  51. 
Empedocles,  256. 

Encyclopedists,  French,  128. 


INDEX 


Engadine,  summers  in,  40,  45. 
English  translation  of  Nietzsche, 
290. 

Englishmen,  236,  260. 

Eternal  recurrence  — 

Origin  of  the  idea,  118. 

Its  fascinations  for  Nietzsche, 
118. 

Effect  on  superman,  1 2 1 . 
European,  the  good,  206. 
Eusebius,  Pamphilius,  76  footnote. 
Evil,  definition  of,  205;  sec  also 
Bad. 

Falckenberg,  Richard,  148. 

Faust,  265. 

Fiske,  John,  140. 

Fite,  Warner,  203. 

Flaubert,  Gustav,  256. 

Fontenelle,  38,  256,  266. 
Forster-Nietzsche,  Elisabeth,  Niet- 
zsche’s sister  — 

Her  biography  of  her  brother, 
6,  So-Si,  294. 

Editor  of  his  works,  47,  291. 
Marriage  and  widowhood,  40,49. 
Relations  with  Nietzsche,  9,  42, 
49,  59- 

Fouillee,  Alfred,  255,  256,  275. 
Franco-Prussian  war,  service  in, 
23,  5i,  55- 
Free  spirit,  201. 

Free  Spirit,  The,  plan  of  proposed 
book,  47. 

Free  will,  130,  160-161. 

Freedom,  235. 

Friedrich  Wilhelm  IV.,  5. 

Gast,  Peter,  38,  48. 

Gaultier,  Jules  de,  257. 
Genealogy  of  Morals,  The  — 
Publication  of,  46. 

Quotations  from,  87,  94,  179 
footnote,  208,  209,  210,  231. 
English  translation  of,  292. 
Genoa,  42,  45. 

Gentleman,  die,  240. 

Gobineau,  256. 

God,  the  idea  of,  232. 

Goethe,  120,  255,  265. 

Golden  Rule,  106-108,  136,  161, 
169. 


299 

Good,  definition  of,  101,  169,  205. 
Gould,  Dr.  George  M.,  51. 

Grave  of  My  Father,  The,  early 
poem,  8. 

Greatness,  definition  of,  260. 
Greek  art,  Nietzsche’s  theory  of, 
25-26,  67  et  seq. 

Greek  drama,  early  essays  on,  24. 
Greek  Philosophy  and  Other  Es- 
says, 291. 

Greek  Woman,  The,  essay,  291. 
Greeks,  influence  on  Nietzsche, 
257-259,  264. 

Greeley,  Horace,  78. 

Haeckel,  Ernst,  138,  141,  161, 
198. 

Halevy,  Daniel,  294. 

Hamblen,  Emily  S.,  294. 
Happiness,  definitions  of,  64,  10 1, 
164,  171,  188,  237. 

Happiness,  unattainable,  259-260. 
Haussmann,  William  A.,  222,  290. 
Headaches,  Nietzsche’s,  51. 

Hegel,  267. 

Hegesippus,  256. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  265-266. 

Hellen,  E.  von  der,  48. 

Helvetius,  256. 

Heracleitus,  255,  263. 

Herder,  267. 

Herrenmoral,  see  Master-morality. 
Hesiod,  17,  22,  205. 

Higher  man,  163,  169,  197  et  seq. 
History,  function  of,  31,  222- 
223. 

History,  On  the  Good  and  Bad  Ef- 
fects of  upon  Human  Life  — 
Publication  of,  31. 

Quotations  from,  172,  289. 
English  translation  of,  291. 
Hobbes,  Thomas,  79,  198,  255, 
256,  263. 

Holderlin,  Friedrich,  266. 

Homer  and  Classical  Philology, 
essay,  291. 

Hone,  J.  M.,  294. 

Human,  All-too  Human  — 

Publication  of  first  volume,  38. 
Effect  of  upon  friends  and 
public,  39,  249. 


3°° 


INDEX 


Quotations  from,  21,  91,  158, 
180,  228,  229. 

Second  and  third  volumes,  39. 
English  translation  of,  291. 
Hume,  Bennett,  274. 

Hume,  David,  128,  286-287. 
Humility,  44,  86,  92,  276-277. 
Huneker,  James,  246  footnote,  295. 
Huxley,  Thomas  H.,  35,  56,  98, 
128,  132,  140,  149,  198,  256, 

268. 

Hymn  to  Life,  292. 

Hypochondria,  Nietzsche’s,  40,  51. 
Ibsen,  Henrik,  33,  261,  272. 

Ideen,  12. 

Immoralist,  The,  plan  of  proposed 
book,  47. 

Income,  Nietzsche’s,  54. 
Inopportune  Speculations  — 

First  volume,  29. 

Plan  of,  34. 

Quotation  from,  141  footnote. 
English  translation  of,  291. 
Insanity,  Nietzsche’s,  48,  51-54, 

269,  271-272. 

Jenner,  198. 

Jews,  44,  75,  85-87,  88,  106,  145, 
237-239. 

Joel,  Karl,  266. 

Jones,  Henry  Arthur,  188. 

Joyful  Science,  The  — 
Publication  of,  43. 

Quotation  from,  207. 

English  translation  of,  292. 
Kant,  Immanuel,  172,  255,  256, 
267. 

Kennedy,  J.  M.,  291,  292,  293,  294. 
Kettle,  T.  M.,  294. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  25. 

Klopstock,  267. 

Koegel,  Fritz,  47. 

Krafft-Ebing,  R.  von,  188. 

Krause,  Dr.,  Nietzsche’s  great- 
uncle,  265. 

Krause,  Frau,  Nietzsche’s  great- 
grandmother, 265. 

La  Bruyere,  38,  256,  266. 

Lady,  the,  189. 

La  Monte,  Robert  Rives,  279  foot- 
note. 


Lankester,  E.  Ray,  281. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  37,  56,  256, 
266. 

Law,  origin  of,  209. 

Legislation,  freak,  196. 

Leipsic,  student  days  at,  16-17, 
259- 

Lessing,  128,  267. 

Levy,  Oscar,  vii,  255,  290-292, 
294- 

Liberty,  the  worth  of,  235. 
Lichtenberger,  Henri,  293. 

Liszt,  Franz,  245  footnote. 

Litter  arischen  Vereinigung  Ger- 
mania, Der,  n. 

Locke,  John,  285-286. 

Lombroso,  Cesare,  269. 

L’Origine  de  la  famille  de  Niet- 
zsche, 6. 

Love,  nature  of,  180-182,  187. 
Low,  Sidney,  165. 

Ludovici,  Anthony  M.,  291,  293, 
294. 

Machiavelli,  198,  256. 

Maggiore,  Lake,  41,  42. 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  295. 

Malthus,  256. 

Mammal,  man  as  a,  261. 

Man,  meaning  of  the  word,  209. 
Mandeville,  256. 

Marienbad,  42. 

Markby,  William,  90. 

Marriage,  see  Women. 

Marx,  Karl,  197,  256. 

Masochism,  188. 

Masses,  the,  159,  164,  172-,  193- 
194,  205,  230,  289. 
Masterman,  C.  F.  G.,  295. 
Master-morality,  82-85,  94  & se1- 
Maternity,  175,  188,  191. 
Mencken,  H.  L.,  279,  294. 
Mentone,  45. 

Messiah,  The,  Handel  oratorio,  8. 
Meysenbug,  Fraulein  von,  42. 
Military  service,  17,  23. 
Miscellaneous  Opinions  and  Apho- 
risms, 39. 

Mohammedanism,  101. 

Monarchy,  193. 

Monism,  109,  138. 


INDEX 


301 


Montaigne,  37,  143  footnote,  256, 
266. 

Moonlight  on  the  Pussta,  compo- 
sition, 8. 

Moral  order  of  the  world,  160. 

Morality  — 

Definitions  of,  75,  172. 

Expression  of  expedience,  75- 
78,  89  et  seq.,  210. 

How  it  becomes  fixed,  80-81. 

Master  and  slave  morality,  82 
et  seq.,  93  et  seq. 

Nietzsche’s  criticism  of,  92  et 
seq. 

More,  Paul  Elmer,  256,  263,  285- 
289,  294. 

Miigge,  M.  A.,  253,  262,  263,  266, 
291,  293. 

Music,  Nietzsche’s  compositions, 
8,  55,  292. 

Music,  Nietzsche’s  love  of,  8-9, 
27,  54-55- 

Natural  morality,  202,  282-283. 

Natural  selection,  see  Struggle  for 
existence. 

Naumann,  C.  G.,  47. 

Naumburg,  Nietzsche  at,  6-12,  22, 
49- 

New  Thought,  51. 

Nice,  45. 

Nicholas  of  Cusa,  148-130,  133. 

Nietzsche,  Ermentrude,  Niet- 
zsche’s grandmother,  6-7,  22, 
265. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  his 

k characteristics  — 

As  a boy,  7-9. 

Pride  in  his  Polish  descent,  6, 
23,  29,  266. 

Love  of  music,  8-9,  54-33. 

A brilliant  pupil,  12. 

His  dislike  of  biergemuthlichkeit, 

14-15- 

Drug-taking,  23,  52. 

As  a professor,  22,  27-29. 

Method  of  writing,  41,  31. 

His  intolerance,  28,  133,  261, 
268,  271. 

Personal  appearance,  50. 

Illnesses,  23,  40-41,  48,  31-52. 


Insanity,  48,  52-54. 

Literary  style,  35-56,  133. 
Women,  56-58. 

Relations  to  his  sister,  39. 
Nietzsche,  Freidrich  Wilhelm,  his 
life  — 

Birth,  4. 

Boyhood  at  Naumburg,  7-12. 
First  writings,  8-1 1. 

At  Pforta,  12-13. 

Matriculates  at  Bonn,  13. 
Student  of  Ritschl,  16. 

Removes  to  Leipsic,  16. 
Military  service,  17,  23. 

First  philological  work,  17. 
Discovery  of  Schopenhauer,  18 
et  seq. 

Takes  his  degree,  22. 

Professor  at  Basel,  22. 

First  breakdown,  23. 

Publishes  “ The  Birth  of  Trag- 
edy,” 23. 

Other  early  essays,  30-36. 
Meeting  with  Wagner,  16. 
Meeting  with  Ree,  37. 

Human,  All-too  Human,  38,  39. 
Affair  with  Lou  Salome,  42. 
Failing  health,  40. 

Income,  34. 

Breakdown  at  Turin,  48. 
Death,  49. 

Nietzsche,  Josef,  Nietzsche’s 
brother,  5. 

Nietzsdhe,  Karl  Ludwig,  Niet- 
zsche’s father,  4-6. 

Nietzsche,  Therese  Elisabeth  Al- 
exandra, Nietzsche’s  sister, 
see  Forster-Nietzsche. 
Nietzsche  versus  Wagner^ — 
Publication  of,  46. 

English  translation  of,  291. 
Nietzschy,  6. 

Nirvana,  101. 

Nobility,  165,  166. 

Nordau,  Max,  37,  33,  269-273, 
275,  293. 

Orage,  A.  R.,  293,  294. 

Osier,  William,  132  footnote,  139. 
Overbeck,  Franz,  48. 

Paganism,  Nietzsche’s,  257-259. 


INDEX 


3°2 

Paget,  Violet  (Vernon  Lee),  120, 
172-173,  275-277,  295. 
Paine,  Thomas,  128. 

Parmenides,  256. 

Parsons,  Elsie  Clews,  184. 

Pasteur,  Louis,  198. 

Pattison,  A.  Seth  Pringle,  295. 
Peace,  universal,  162. 

Petre,  Maude  D.,  292,  295. 
Pfleiderer,  Otto,  91,  128. 

Pforta,  12-13. 

Philologists,  We,  essay,  291. 
Philosophy,  32,  218,  229. 

Pindar,  Judge,  of  Naumburg,  265. 
Pleasure  and  pain,  20  footnote. 
Plowshare,  The,  38. 

Poetry,  Nietzsche’s,  6,  293. 

Polish  origin  of  Nietzsche  family, 

6. 

Poor  Laws,  effect  of  English,  281. 
Prayer,  129-130. 

Predestination,  130-13 1. 
Priestcraft,  231. 

Professor  at  Basel,  22. 

Progress,  Nietzsche’s  program  of, 
114,  163,  172,  201. 

Property  rights,  165. 

Proudhon,  256. 

Pussta,  8. 

Pyrrho,  256. 

Pythagoras,  118  footnote,  256. 

Ree,  Paul  — 

Nietzsche’s  meeting  with,  37. 
Rivals  in  love,  42,  57. 

Influence  on  Nietzsche,  37,  256. 
Renaissance,  Second,  255. 

Richard  Wagner  in  Bayreuth  — 
Publication  of,  34. 

English  translation  of,  29T. 

See  also  Wagner. 

Ritschl,  Albrecht,  128. 

Ritschl,  Frau,  16-17. 

Ritschl,  Friedrich  Wilhelm,  16-17. 
Robertson,  J.  M.,  295. 

Rocken,  4-5,  49. 

Romantic  movement  in  Germany, 
266,  286. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore,  ix. 
Rousseau,  255. 

St.  Austin,  76  footnote. 


Sallust,  56. 

Salome,  Lou  — 

Meeting  with  Nietzsche,  42. 
Book  on  Nietzsche,  42,  118. 
Marriage,  42. 

Nietzsche’s  affair  with,  42-57. 
Hymn  to  Life,  292. 

Samuel,  Horace  B.,  292. 

Science,  its  aims,  236. 

Scheffauer,  Hermann,  292. 
Schiller,  267. 

Schooldays  at  Naumburg,  10-12. 
Schopenhauer,  Arthur  — 
Nietzsche’s  discovery  of,  18. 
The  will-to-live,  19-21,  101. 
Nietzsche’s  divergence,  21,  33. 
Essay  on,  32,  29r. 

Influence  on  Nietzsche,  22,  32- 
33,  54,  63-64,  100,  174,  177, 
189,  242  et  seq.,  255,  257-260. 
Schopenhauer  as  a Teacher- — 
Publication  of,  32. 

Quotations  from,  32,  33,  219. 
English  translation  of,  29r. 
Schumann,  Robert,  272. 
Self-control,  233. 

Sera,  Leo  G.,  294. 

Seydlitz,  Baron  von,  52. 

Shaw,  G.  Bernard,  ix,  82,  250,  295. 
Silberblick,  49. 

Sils  Maria,  45. 

Sin,  the  Christian  idea  of,  214. 
Skepticism,  148-151, 158,  214,  264. 
Sklavmoral,  see  Slave-morality. 
Slave-morality,  85-87,  105,  106, 
i33,  175,  237. 

Smith,  Adam,  256. 

Social  contract,  203  et  seq.,  209. 
Socialism,  98,  164,  256,  286,  288, 
295- 

Socrates,  91,  153,  155. 

Sorrento,  37. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  35,  51,  54,  55, 
98,  99, 115, 140,  221,  247,  261, 
268,  272. 

Spinoza,  255. 

State,  origin  of,  204. 

Stendhal,  255,  262. 

Stimer,  Max,  255,  262-263. 
Strauss,  David  Friedrich,  30,  128; 


INDEX 


see  also  David  Strauss,  the 
Confessor  and  the  Writer. 

Strauss,  Richard,  55. 

Struggle  for  existence,  94,  102, 
133,  138  et  seq.,  163,  204,  223. 

Style,  Nietzsche’s  German,  55- 
56,  133,  266. 

Suicide,  226,  227-228. 

Superman  — 

Described,  109-113. 

His  purposes,  113-114,  169. 

His  characteristics,  115,  122  et 
seq. 

Sympathy,  136-137,  280,  287,  288. 

Taine,  256. 

Teacher,  Nietzsche  as  a,  22-23. 

Teachers,  their  characteristics, 
217,  219-220. 

Thoughts  Out  of  Season,  see  In- 
opportune Speculations. 

Tille,  Alexander, 140,  222,  256,  290. 

Tobacco,  Nietzsche’s  dislike  of,  15. 

Tr , Fraulein,  Nietzsche’s  pro- 

posal to,  18. 

Tragedy,  its  origin,  26,  63  et  seq. 

Tribschen,  25,  27,  37,  244. 

Truth  — 

Definitions  of,  147  et  seq.,  159. 
Its  origin  in  error,  154. 

The  scientific  method,  151-157, 
236. 

Turck,  Dr.,  172-173. 

Turin,  breakdown  at,  48. 

Twilight  of  the  Idols,  The  — 
Publication  of,  46. 

Quotations  from,  66,  142  foot- 
note, 161,  234,  235,  236,  265. 
English  translation  of,  292. 

Vauvenarges,  38,  266. 

Venice,  42. 

Voltaire,  128,  256. 

Wagner,  The  Case  of  — 
Publication  of,  46,  249. 
Quotation  from,  249. 

English  translation  of,  291. 

Wagner,  Cosima,  25,  27,  48,  57, 
244,  245,  266. 

Wagner,  Richard  — 

Meeting  with  Nietzsche,  16, 
244. 


303 

Nietzsche  visits  at  Tribschen, 
25>  27,  37,  244. 

Richard  Wagner  in  Bayreuth, 
34,  246. 

Burlesqued  in  Thus  Spake  Za- 
rathustra,  45. 

The  Case  of  Wagner,  46,  249. 
Nietzsche  vs.  Wagner,  46,  251. 
Nietzsche  as  a Wagnerian,  242. 
Wagner  and  Schopenhauer,  243. 
Parsifal,  247,  248. 

Bayreuth  opening,  247. 

Break  with  Nietzsche,  245,  251. 
Nietzsche’s  last  words  on,  49. 
Walker,  J.  L.,  263. 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  140  foot- 
note. 

Wallace,  William,  295. 

Walling,  William  English,  295. 
Wanderer  and  His  Shadow,  The, 
39- 

War,  benefits  of,  169,  175,  236. 
War,  Heracleitus  on,  263. 

Weimar,  48-49. 

White,  Andrew  D.,  35,  89,  274. 
Wieland,  267. 

Wife,  182,  185. 

Will-to-live,  19-22,  64,  114. 
Will-to-power,  64,  105,  114,  157, 
188. 

Will-to-Power,  The  — 

Plan  of  proposed  work,  47. 
Notes  published,  48. 

Quotation  from,  289. 

English  translation  of,  292. 
Windelband.  Wilhelm,  69  footnote. 
Women  — 

Nietzsche’s  personal  attitude, 
57,  186. 

Their  chief  duty,  175,  188. 
Their  slave-morality,  175,  179, 
186. 

Sources  of  their  weakness,  176. 
Their  guile,  177,  180,  187. 
Man’s  attitude  toward  them, 
178-179. 

Marriage,  180  et  seq. 

“ Don’t  forget  thy  whip!  ” 187. 
Schopenhauer  on,  57,  174,  189. 
The  lady,  189. 


3°4 


INDEX 


Wrench,  G.  T.,  292,  294. 

Wright,  Willard  H.,  294. 
Zarathustra,  Thus  Spake  — 
Publication  of,  44. 

Plan  of,  45. 

Quotations  from,  90,  102,  104, 
105,  106,  109,  hi,  1x2,  113, 


11S,  119,  169,  175,  184,  185 
187,  188,  193,  228. 

Richard  Strauss’  tone-poem,  55 
English  translation  of,  292. 
Zeno,  256. 

Zimmern,  Helen,  291. 

Zoroaster,  see  Zarathustra. 


TRANS.  irrvUivi  rL 

1993 


193.91 


M536P 


583724 


